Foraging Walnuts

This weekend we enjoyed wonderful warm fall weather and took advantage of it by taking a trip to up Apple Hill. We drove away with fresh cider, a dried lavender bouquet, Pink Lady and Rome Beauty apples, and a bag full of walnuts we had foraged from a streetside tree. Then, a friend offered to let us gather walnuts from her tree as well.

The good news:

The bad news:

We still have a long ways to go, but just think - bags and bags of free walnuts to last a year! (That's how long they keep in the freezer.) I'm a big fan of adding nuts to all sorts of baked goods; cakes, cookies, and crisps are all better with some toasted nuts. Here's to free food!

Foraging for Figs

This week, my sister-in-law called me and asked, "Do you still want figs?" She was referring to a Facebook post in which I asked if anyone I knew had a fig tree and extra figs to share. (No one did.) I can never get enough figs, mostly because figs cost $5 a basket, and I eagerly asked what she might have in mind.

Her idea was to glean figs from a huge fig tree that she passes daily on the walk to her son's school. She had already stopped at the house numerous times to ask permission to pick some fruit, but never to found anyone home. Further, the fruit was hanging over the fence onto a public sidewalk and even falling onto the ground and rotting. In cases like this, I consider it a public service to pick the fruit that would otherwise rot and attract pests. Of course, the fact that figs are amongst my favorite fruits only sweetens the deal.

This was my first time foraging fruit from someone's tree besides family or friends. In truth, it felt a little sneaky at first, but my sister-in-law told us she would persist in visiting the house until she can talk to the owner about the figs and offer to pick the bulk of the fruit still on the tree.

We only got a few pounds of figs, but were still excited about the possibilities. Fresh figs don't last long once picked, so I decided on an impromptu fig-strawberry preserve using green apple (which contains natural pectin) to thicken it up. It turned out pretty good, and pairs excellently with cheese. When we have friends over this weekend, I intend to spread it on brie, tuck it into puff pastry and turn it into this:

Source: simplyrecipes.com via Stacy on Pinterest

Other fig ideas for when we glean again include Fig Upside Down Cake and Ginger Fig Preserves:

Source: foodblogga.blogspot.com via Stacy on Pinterest

Source: blueeyedyonder.blogspot.com via Stacy on Pinterest

Are you a fig person? What is your favorite way to eat them?

Fuyu Persimmon Bundt Cake

We had some friends come in from out of town and visit us this weekend. We made a Korean-themed dinner for them after learning that they enjoy Asian food, and finished off our feast with a not-Asian-at-all-but-still-delicious cake.
As a side note, I have had a canker sore on my tongue all week, which meant that I couldn't take a bite of food, chew, talk, or exist without mild to severe discomfort. And in case you're thinking about herpes, do note: a canker sore is not a contagious virus like a cold sore. But it sure does make life miserable.
The healing of said canker sore couldn't have come at a more welcome time, because it allowed me to fully enjoy (without pain!) the Fuyu Persimmon Bundt Cake we made with the persimmons we foraged and froze last month. Recipes for Fuyu persimmons were hard to come by, but this one (originally published in Sunset magazine in the 1970's) is a winner, so I want to share it with anyone else who has or will have a persimmon surplus on their hands.

This cake is my kind of dessert - old-fashioned, humble, unassuming, yet fabulous in an understated way. The warm spiced cake is marbled with moist chunks of fruit, raisins and nuggets of walnut. I added on a simple cream cheese frosting to dress it up a bit and it was a perfect conclusion to a January evening.

Fuyu Persimmon Bundt Cake

Grease and flour a bundt cake pan. Preheat oven to 350.

Blend 2 tsp. baking soda into 3 cups of chopped firm Fuyus. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat 1/2 cup soft butter with 1 2/3 cups sugar. Add 2 eggs, 2 tsp. lemon juice, and 2 tsp. vanilla and beat until fluffy. Stir in Fuyu mix.

Sift together 2 cups flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. ground cloves, 1 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg. Stir flour into Fuyu mixture just until blended. Add 1 cup chopped walnuts and 3/4 cup raisins.

Pour into prepared bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 55 - 60 minutes or until toothpick tests clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Turn onto rack.

The Joys of Foraging

It never ceases to amaze me that even in the cold, rainy midst of winter, nature is capable of providing nourishment. As I walked through my parent’s back yard this weekend, I noticed an unusual-looking fruit lying on the ground under what I had always mistaken for an ornamental bush. After some taste testing and research, I discovered that the fruits are called Feijoa, or Pineapple Guavas (pictured above), and are native to South America. Inside, the soft pulp is citrusy, both tart and sweet and fun to squeeze out, while the protective tough green skin may be discarded.




The very next day, a friend from church learned of my love for persimmons and offered to let me and my husband come and glean the fruit from their persimmon tree, as her family doesn’t care for this fruit. I jumped at this opportunity, and this is how my refrigerator came to be overcrowded with four bulging bags of fruit.

Three of the bags contain the bright orange orbs of Fuyu persimmons. The trouble is, Fuyus are generally eaten raw, unlike Hachiyas where the pulp is often pureed and used in baked goods. I’ve had quite a time figuring out how to preserve the fruit to keep it from going to waste.


I finally decided upon a double batch of both persimmon jam and persimmon chutney (one version, pictured above). So far, the jam came out fairly well, although I probably didn’t add enough sugar. Jam recipes are notoriously scientific and unforgiving of aberration. I like things a little on the mild side anyway, and will still consider my jam something to look forward to on toast. Tonight, I will take a stab at my first ever chutney - a recipe I found posted by a New Zealand blogger chronicling her grandmother’s vintage recipes. It sounded fascinating - whoever first imagined that raisins, onions, garlic, ginger, and fruit would go together?

As tiring as it may be, I love that gleaning and preserving food allows me to feel a connection to nature, as well as to my ancestors, who performed these acts by way of necessity. Today, I choose to do these same acts because it gives me a peaceful feeling to participate in such a timeless act universal to all humanity. Bounty surrounds us if we seek it out.