i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
We decided to make crab cakes with the four lady crabs we caught. These crabs are meaty and perfect for crab cakes. I followed a recipe for it but I think I will omit most of the the things next time and just use a …
This week has been fun, learning about when and how to catch Snapper fish at the local fishing pier. We’ve been catching at least a few per day until today, when the super rough waters only came up with one. This one’s a decent size, about 10 inches from fish lips to fish tail.
I decided to try to sink a line hooked with a shiner (the bait) to the floor so that perhaps we may get flounder or fluke or a larger bluefish, but instead, I began pulling up crabs! I manage to get 4 lady crabs (my net is small and isn’t suitable for crabs and these guys are at least 5-6 inches across the carapace) although I managed to also snare a Jonah crab and a few blue crabs–but they escaped. Trust the day I don’t bring chicken for crabs to be abundant.
Lady crabs are edible, but a lot of people think that only the blue claws on LI are for eating, ignoring this particular treat. It’s meat is sweet and delicious, suitable definitely for steamed with a little old bay, or made into crab cakes, which is what I’ll be doing with them.
I hope next year we can start going fishing earlier in the year, as this week I have not bought meat at the market at all, subsisting on the abundant seafood the ocean is providing.
Let me preface this by saying that throughout my childhood and the majority of my adult life, I have never been able to kill anything on purpose (except mosquitoes) and the idea has always been greatly taboo not only in my upbringing (my parents are …
One of the things I like to do most with dandelion is making a pesto. I’ll make it two or three times a year, usually in the spring and the fall when the dandelions are most tender. I pick the ones in the shaded areas …
Ah, dandelions (Taraxacum officionale), the bane of America’s sterile and homogenous grass lawns. It’s a pity people dislike it so much because it really is a wonderful plant, and in many parts of the world like Italy, it’s a common vegetable green. High in fiber and a whole bunch of other vitamins (especially Vitamin A and K, which means those on Coumadin and other blood thinners should avoid it), it’s a healthy weed that I don’t pull out unless it’s invading my vegetable beds. It’s perennial nature make it a great prepper vegetable for when the end of the world arrives (if ever), and its ability to survive in some of the harshest soil and light conditions make it an important food crop in my book.
If you’re collecting it for consumption, make sure it’s away from roads and places where you’re sure hasn’t been treated with pesticides, as it is a hard metal accumulator as well as often the target of weedkiller. I usually only collect it during the spring and the fall in my own backyard–that’s when the leaves are tender. Because I have so much (and my neighbors must hate me for this), I can be choosy when it comes to which ones I pick–I stay with those that are the shade most of the time so the leaves are big, tender, and not as bitter as those grown in full sun.
It can be sauteed, made into salads (the Italians knew they were edible and would harvest them during the Great Depression), topping for pizza, or made into pesto. It’s a bitter green but if you pick the right ones, it’s much less bitter than escarole. The flavor is of dandelion–which is unique in itself, tastes strongly of honey, which is why I always pair dandelion pesto with brie on bread. I don’t like to stew is so much, and even sauteed, it must be done quickly or else it shrinks greatly in size and becomes stringy.
It makes for great forage material for my ducks as well, and they often decimate the dandelion population so much that I have to collect the fluffy seed heads and disperse it where they free range to keep up. It doesn’t have any poisonous look alikes, making it a safe plant for beginners to forage (other plants that look similar are part of the same family and edible as well.)
Recipes With Dandelion:
Dandelion Pesto with Tomato and Bread
Dandelion Apple Kimchi
A lot of sources will tell you that Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is only reliably perennial from zone 9 upwards, zone 8 pushing it, and zone 7 should be wintered indoors. This is where a location’s microclimate as well as choosing cold hardy varieties come into …
Italian parsley is grown as an annual/biennial culinary, which means that it usually dies in its second year after it sets seed. That doesn’t make it suitable for my particular application of a perennial food forest so sometimes I decline to grow it, even though …
Almost 2 years ago, I had been craving alfalfa bad. I was pregnant with our second and the desire for those delicious greens was hitting me hard. But as a pregnant woman, you’re not supposed to buy sprouts at the supermarket because it often has …
