How to clean nopales, prickly pear cactus paddles. Step by step instructions, with a video, on how to remove spines from nopales.
Edible Wild Plants
Recipes and harvesting guides for a variety of edible wild plants and mushrooms. You'll find step by step guides on how to gather edible wild plants safely, and then recipes on how to cook them once you've gathered them.
These are broken into sections covering edible wild greens, berries and other fruit, wild mushrooms, starches and nuts, as well as a selection of pickle recipes using wild plants.
Nopales en Escabeche
A recipe for nopales en escabeche, pickled nopales from Mexico. Prickly pear cactus pads, diced and piickled with jalapenos, carrots and onions.
Fireweed Tea
Fireweed tea is a fermented, black tea like store-bought, only made from the leaves of fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium.
Fancy Pigeon
A band-tailed pigeon recipe that uses ingredients from where these game birds live. Acorn spatzle, a pigeon jus, pine nuts and various pickled fruits.
Doves with Prickly Pear BBQ Sauce
A damn good barbecue sauce featuring the fruit of the prickly pear, also called a tuna.
Pickled Blueberries
Pickled blueberries – blueberries or huckleberries (or really any small berry) preserved in a semi-sweet vinegar. Use them alongside meat or poultry.
Trout with Morels
Trout with morels is a classic springtime combo; you can often find the two in the same trip! Simple, pan-fried trout with bacon, morels and onions.
Nettle Soup
A recipe for Scandinavian nettle soup; basically a nettle bisque. This recipe is based on Swedish nasselsoppa, and can be made with any vivid spring green.