Alicia Bayer

Some edible plants that produce a lot of foods for both bears and people that we enjoy (and that are cheap to get and plant or can be grown from seeds or transplanted starts):

apples and crab apples
sunchokes (do bears dig up roots?) -- my friends with sunchokes/Jerusalem artichokes all end up with more than they can keep up with every fall
black raspberries (also good for making barriers)
mulberries (they also grow very quickly and produce quickly)
greens (not sure if bears care about greens) like lambsquarters, nettles, curly dock (which also makes good seeds for baking)
anything in the mint family is pretty hard to overharvest because it spreads so quickly and happily -- wild mint, lemon balm, bee balm, etc. (we use these for teas and medicine, especially lemon balm)

For the biggest quantity, fruit and nut trees are going to be the best.  We grow apples from seed on the kitchen counter and then you can transplant them once they get a few inches tall.  They are not true to the parent variety but if you're growing for cider or sauce it doesn't matter much -- or for feeding a hungry bear that eats up everything else.

Just as a note, stuffed animals are so common these days that thrift stores just give them away.  One thing that is really popular these days are weighted stuffies.  Basically, heavy stuffed animals are wonderful for kids who have "the wiggles" and trouble sitting still or who feel anxious.  They are commonly used for kids with sensory integration disorders, ADHD or just for comfort -- even for adults.  Look into weighted blankets and weighted stuffies.  

With that in mind, you could fill stuffed animals with all kinds of things besides light and fluffy material.  I don't make stuffies, but I make hot weighted rice/beans/quinoa bags for my teen daughter.  I use beans or grains that have gotten old and put a couple of bags of them in an old pillowcase and tie it to make super simple ones, then we microwave them for about 4 minutes to use when the house is cold, we have sore muscles, or if we have cramps or a stomach ache.  I add a few shakes of essential oils inside sometimes for a nice scent.  They last forever and to wash them we just untie them, dump the beans or rice in a bowl temporarily (or fill with new if needed), and toss them in the washer.  If you made a stuffed animal version, I'd recommend putting a little zipper area inside so you could empty them, wash them, and fill again.

Here's an example of a "weighted anxiety plush" from Amazon as an example.

Here are the regularly foraged foods that our family has relied on over the years.  Some of these are higher in calories like fruits, nuts and syrups and others are higher in vitamins and nutrients like greens.  Some wild foods do not contribute a lot of calories but still contribute vital nutrients, like pine needles and rose hips for vitamin C even in the dead of winter.  We do not hunt so protein and fat would be the biggest needs for us if we relied entirely on foraged foods, but some of that can come from other wild foods like nuts of course. Foraged foods have supplied a great deal of our food for a lot of years with our big family when all the kids were at home though (we are down to just one at home now). There were some years we foraged up to 400 pounds of wild foods (heavy items like apples and pears helped).

This is only wild foods that our family actually enjoys, not "survival foods" that don't taste good to us like Virginia waterleaf or garlic mustard, which are plentiful here in MN but not something we enjoy. We are in zone 4 SW Minnesota. These are just our commonly gathered standards, that are fairly easy for us to find and gather. There are plenty of other great ones, like we don't happen to  have blueberries, huckleberries or hazelnuts near us but those are very common elsewhere.  Also, a little farther south than us the redbud trees have delicious pink flowers in the spring that taste like fresh garden peas.  :)

I'll break it up by season.

~ Late winter to early spring -- tapping walnut and maple trees for syrup, ramps, nettles, dandelion flowers for fritters, wild asparagus, violets (leaves and flowers), morels, chicken of the woods, pheasant back mushrooms, cattail sprouts/stalks, pine needles, dandelion greens

~ Late spring to summer -- elderflowers for fritters and soda/champagne, nettles, wood sorrel, raspberries, black raspberries, mulberries, wild strawberries, gooseberries, lambsquarters, oyster mushrooms, watermint, wild plums, lots of wild mints (corn mint, catmint, etc.), spruce tips, milkweed blossoms, wild garlic, cattail pollen

~ late summer to fall -- elderberries, acorns, walnuts, dock seeds, oyster mushrooms, lion's mane mushrooms, rose hips, wild grapes, apples, pears, crab apples, sumac, chokecherries, young milkweed pods (delicious battered and fried), hen of the woods mushrooms, maple seeds, grape leaves, roots like burdock, sunchokes

How we preserve our wild foods:  We dry some of our mushrooms (especially tougher ones) and I powder them to use in soups, meatballs, stews and my morning coffee drink. We saute and freeze other mushrooms. We freeze our berries (flash freeze them flat first so you can scoop them out as needed when they're bagged up) and our asparagus. We dry leaves like mints and nettles.  I also dry ramp leaves and mix them into a delicious seasoning salt (salt, dried ramps, pepper, garlic powder). We also can berries and fruits like plums in syrups or in pie filling (less often because of all the sugar). We store our acorns whole (leached and roasted) and grind as needed, because the high fat content can make them go rancid more quickly once they're ground. We can our apples as sauce (often 80 quarts a year from just one of two good trees) and our pears in light syrup. There were a few years when my son Alex would start every morning with a big bowl of applesauce from the root cellar -- free breakfast all fall and winter. I also use the applesauce in baking, to replace half of the oil in recipes. We can it unsweetened and the kids sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top when they eat it.

This doesn't include medicinal plants we forage like mullein, hawthorn, motherwort, plantain, dandelion root, etc. or foods we get for free but are not technically considered foraging like neighbors who let us harvest their rhubarb or the farm that gives away all their extra pumpkins after Halloween.

Here's an image from one of our foraging years when I wrote up an end of the year blog post about that year.

What are your favorite wild edible and medicinal plants to forage in fall?

Our family's (in SW Minnesota) are generally....

~ Acorns, mostly for flour (though sometimes for fun things like coffee creamer, ice cream, etc.)

~ Hawthorn berries (haws) for tinctures for heart health

~ Wild mushrooms like lion's mane (medicinally), chicken of the woods (eating) and inky caps (art).

~ The last of the berries and fruits like elderberries and wild grapes for food, drinks and medicine.

~ Dock seeds for flour for things like brownies and crackers.

~ Fruits like pears, apples and crab apples for baking, cider, etc.

~ Herbs like dandelion root for tinctures.

~ Sumac for spice and sumac lemonade.

~ Walnuts for baking, though they are so fiddly that we don't do them most years, TBH.

If you and your kids would like to have fun with it, here's a fall foraging BINGO I made up for the September Wild Kids Magazine (a free nonprofit nature and foraging magazine for kids and their grown ups that I've put out for over 7 years).  If you want a printable version, you can find it in the September 2026 issue here.  (The current October 2026 issue up now too here.)

Would you get a bingo?  What would you add?  :)

PS These are obviously for our part of the world but I'd be happy to make one up for other areas if you want to list favorite plants to look for!

I love to make pot pies with pourable crusts to make them even easier.  I cook for gluten free family members and this is similar to the crust I use (scroll down past the pot pie recipe to the topping recipe).  For the insides, I do something similar to hers but just wing it -- lots of veggies, chopped cooked potatoes, a protein of some sort, mushrooms and herbs, leftovers, whatever in a creamy homemade sauce.  I got these little tart dishes for 90% off after Thanksgiving at Michael's one year and my kids especially love having their own little pot pie.  :)

Oops!  I just posted this and then I got a note under it that it was similar to another thread about GF pizza crust that I apparently posted 8 years ago!  LOL  Well, that was a waste of a lot of typing! 😜 Oh well!  I'm leaving it since I might have said something different.  I think I need more coffee. 😜

I thought I'd share our family's tried-and-true pizza crust recipe for gluten free folks.  I used to make this every Friday night when we still had 6 kids at home (5 of our own, plus a bonus teen we took in).  Even my gluten-eating kids still request that I make this because they like it even better than regular crust.  It's actually easier to make than traditional wheat crust, because there's no kneading. You don't even roll it -- you just smooth it onto the pan with really wet hands.  It's soft, chewy, with a good rise and a nice flavor. I grind the grains myself in my Vitamix grain mill but you can also buy them pre-ground for a little more.  This makes two crusts and I usually double it because I cook for so many.  It also makes a heavenly dessert pizza (I can post the recipe for that if anyone would like it).

It looks long and complicated, but only because I've written out the directions kind of precisely so be helpful. With mixing, rising and baking, I can make homemade pizza from scratch in a little over an hour, of most of that time is me watching TV with a glass of wine while I wait for rising or baking.  :)

Note:  You can easily substitute your favorite GF flour mix for all the flours and starches.  This mix of them works really well for texture and taste, though.  It's great either way, but the whole grain brown rice flour and millet flour make a nice texture and make it healthier than most commercial mixes that are mostly starch and white rice.

Alicia's Gluten-Free Pizza Crust

(makes two 14-16 inch crusts)

   2 cups brown rice flour
   1 cup potato starch
   1/2 cup tapioca starch
   1/2 cup millet flour
   4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
   2 teaspoon baking powder
   4 teaspoons xanthan gum or guar gum
   1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
   2 teaspoon fine sea salt
   4 tablespoons honey or sugar
   2 large eggs (flax eggs work great if you’re vegan)
   4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil + more for oiling the pans
   2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
   1 1/2 cup warm water (plus more if needed)

   Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with paddle attachment.

   Start mixer on slowest speed to incorporate ingredients, then increase to medium and mix for 2 minutes. Increase mixer speed to medium-high and mix for another minute. The dough should look like a thick cake batter and should stick to the sides of the mixing bowl (not form a ball like traditional wheat dough).

   Oil two pizza pans with 1-2 tablespoons olive oil. Divide the dough in half and scrape into two balls onto the pans.

   Fill a bowl with warm water and put it next to your work area. Wet your hands and gently press and spread the dough outward in circular motions towards the outer edges of the pan to form 14 to 16 inch circles (or squares if you like a square pizza), leaving a slightly raised crust along the edge. Wet your hands as needed so that you can keep spreading and smoothing the dough without it sticking to your hands. Don’t worry about getting the dough too wet. Patch and press any spots that break through. Go ahead and smooth it fairly thin, as it will rise and get thicker.

   When the dough is smoothed onto the pizza pan, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and and gently smooth over the dough. Set uncovered in a warm place.

   Let the dough rise for 35-45 minutes. It will puff up somewhat.

   Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 10 minutes.

   Remove from oven and add sauce and desired toppings.

   Return the topped pizza to oven and bake for approximately 12-16 more minutes until cheese is melted and crust is light golden brown.

   Slide onto a wire rack to cool (optional, this helps keep the crust crisp up), slice and serve.

***

Substitutions: This dough is very forgiving! If you have allergies or just run out of one type of gluten free flour, feel free to substitute a similar flour. For instance, you can substitute arrowroot starch for one of the starches and sorghum flour for some or all of the brown rice flour. We have made this recipe with many combinations of flours and it’s always a success. Just make sure to substitute flours of the same type (starches for starches, and whole grains for whole grains) and many different combinations will work.  As mentioned, we have friends who make it by just using a gluten free flour mix for the whole 4 cups of flours and starches, too, but individual mixes may vary in results.

A note about pans:  Pizza crusts will cook up differently on different types of pans.  They may cook very quickly on dark metal pans.  At home, I use cookie sheets that are double layered and light colored and I have good results.  When I cook pizza at my friend Tiffany’s house, I have to cook one pizza in a dark pan and another in a light one, and have to keep a closer eye on the one on the dark pan.  Know your pans and adjust times as needed.  You can also use a preheated pizza stone if you prepare the crust on parchment paper and then slide the paper right onto the stone.

Enjoy!

We have a big family (5 kids, and we've taken in extra teens for months and even years before) and a small budget, so this is something I've really worked on over the years.  We also have special dietary needs like gluten free kids, which made it even more important to find frugal hacks. Here are my best strategies, that I made into a graphic on our family foraging/homesteading blog years ago.  Using any of these will help, the more the better.  We live pretty far from most stores but we make trips to "civilization" regularly and bundle that with fun and educational things with the kids.  Every one of these has been a huge part of being able to eat really well, really healthy, on a fraction of what most modern families spend on food.

I would also add that discount grocery stores often have great prices on gluten free, organic and other specialty foods. We call them scratch and dent stores and our nearest one is called Mike's Discount Foods. The stuff tends to be close to expiration but you can quickly freeze, prep, can, etc. produce or just use it quickly.  I regularly get things like organic cherry tomatoes for $1 a pint with another free (so .50 each box), or a bag of gluten free bagels for $2.50 that we toss in the freezer for treats.

My favorite fall food has been anything made with acorns for years now.  About 20 years ago, we decided to try foraging acorns and making acorn muffins with our oldest kids as a fun homeschooling project.  We thought they would taste like "survival food" like hard tack (blech, LOL), which we also made to realize what Civil War soldiers had to eat.  We were so shocked at how delicious the acorn muffins were, and the smell as they were baking was so unique and heavenly.  

It became our favorite Thanksgiving recipe to make every year, and then when our son Alex was diagnosed Celiac and we had more kids and a tighter budget, we started seriously harvesting them for the wonderful flour. I kept finding more and more delicious ways to use them, and ultimately ended up writing an acorn foraging book with over 80 recipes (afflink: Acorn Foraging: Everything You Need to Know to Harvest One of Autumn’s Best Wild Edible Foods, with Recipes, Photographs and Step-By-Step Instructions ).

We had so much fun developing them, and I even went down a rabbit hole and found out that the first version of hot cocoa was actually a roasted acorn drink called racahout, but in Europe they had to find a cheap and easy substitute for the acorn flour to make it commercially and they were trying to promote this newly introduced commercial food product -- cocoa powder -- so they substituted that and it became a hit.  As far as I know, there's no surviving recipe for it but I managed to recreate it and then taught folks how to make it and handed out samples at free community workshops, along with things like acorn spice cupcakes.  If you want to learn the long history of racahout, I wrote it up on our family foraging/homesteading blog here.

The smell of roasting acorns is still my favorite fall smell.  You can leach the bitter tannins out either the cold water method (long soaking, frequent rinsing, in a fridge over a couple of weeks or in a running stream -- yes, I know some people do the toilet tank method but I could never go there) or hot water leaching (bring them to a boil in water, keep changing the water as it gets brown) and both methods have different benefits (cold water leaching retains the starches, for instance, and is better for baking or when you want things to stick together, hot water leaching is faster....).

Anyway, here's a picture of our youngest daughter drinking racahout (I can dig out the recipe if anyone would like it, I don't have it online) and a picture of me teaching a child how to make it at a library talk, and here's my recipe for acorn spice cupcakes, which are my husband's favorite cake for his fall birthday.  :)  If you want to make them as sweet muffins, just leave off the frosting.  I also have a more traditional muffin recipe with less sugar that's less of a breakfast/dessert.  These are definitely a cake kind of muffin.  My frosting is incredibly decadent, but for special occasions it's what my family loves.

This recipe uses less acorn flour to make it stretch longer but enough that it has that wonderful acorn flavor.

Ingredients:

   ½ cup acorn flour
   1 ¾ cup gluten free flour mix with xanthan gum (or add 1 tsp xanthan gum) or all-purpose flour (I use an easy homemade GF cake flour, recipe below)
   1 TBS baking powder
   1 tsp salt
   1/4 tsp baking soda
   4 eggs
   1/2 cup vegetable oil
   1 cup sugar
   1 TBS pumpkin pie spice (optional)
   2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:

   Preheat the oven to 325 and grease pans (one 9×13 pan, two cake pans or about 24 cupcakes).
   Blend all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl on low until well mixed.  Add the rest of the ingredients, blend well on low, then turn to medium and then high and beat 3 minutes.
   Pour the batter into your prepared pan(s) and bake about 20 minutes for cupcakes, 30-40 minutes for larger pans (check every few minutes after 30 minutes) or until springy on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
   Cool completely before frosting or slicing.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Blend 1 stick of softened butter, one brick of softened cream cheese, 3-4 cups of powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you like it) and one teaspoon of vanilla or acorn extract.  Beat until smooth and spread on cooled cake.

Homemade GF cake blend:
   400 grams millet flour
   300 grams sweet rice flour --- not regular rice flour, this is also called glutinous rice flour but it contains no gluten
   300 grams potato starch

Just as a note, I am the author of an acorn foraging and recipe book (Acorn Foraging (aff link), and I've posted a lot of recipes and info about harvesting, leaching and preparing acorns here in the forums.  If it's helpful, this is one thread where I've shared info and a lot of recipes:

Acorn mush preparation
Here's a discussion of the book, as well.

If there's any recipe in particular you'd like, I'd be happy to post it.  I've got them for so many wonderful ways to use acorns -- biscuits, coffee creamer, veggie meat patties, spice cake, beverages, ice cream, waffles, porridge, meatballs, crackers, you name it.  :)

This collage is some of the treats we've made with acorns over the years.  We absolutely love them and they're such a great gluten-free ingredient for our big family with allergies too.

(PS  I've also written a children's foraging alphabet called A is for Acorns (aff link), illustrated by my oldest daughter. I'll include the A page from that for fun, too. Each letter has a wild food you can forage and then in the margins there are other wild edible and medicinal plants that start with that letter to try to name too.)  :)