Category: Cooking

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How to turn wild acorns into edible flour

Acorns

Have you ever walked through a forest in autumn and wondered if those acorns crunching underfoot could be turned into something delicious? With a bit of know-how, these wild treasures can be transformed into versatile acorn flour for pancakes, tortes, and more!

I attended an excellent workshop yesterday at our local library on that very topic and could tell that Austin Cannon was speaking from personal experience. I thought you might enjoy seeing and reading the highlights.

Step 1: Gather acorns

Red vs. white oak groups
Left: The white oak group has rounded lobes. Right: The red oak group has pointed lobes.

While you can pick up acorns in the woods, Austin instead recommended looking for park situations where lawns are maintained below the trees. That makes it easy to gather the nuts (and also helps you compete with squirrels).

You’ll want to identify what type(s) of oaks you’re gathering so you can separate your haul. Species in the white oak group have rounded lobes — Chestnut Oaks are a great example with big acorns. Species in the red oak group have pointy-tipped lobes and include Red, Black, Scarlet, and Pin Oaks, among others.

White-oak-group acorns need to be processed or frozen immediately since they’ll begin to sprout in a matter of days. Red-oak-group acorns can be checked over (see the next section), dried, then stored in a rodent-proof location like a metal trashcan at room temperature for up to four years.

 

Step 2: Assess the quality of your acorns

Bad acorns to be discarded
Bad acorns to be discarded. Clockwise from upper left: Cracked acorns won’t store well (but might be fine if frozen); Insect burrow can be cut out; Weevil hole in shell means this nut definitely shouldn’t be stored at room temperature or the infestation will spread; Moldy acorn should not be eaten.

The next step is to take a look at your acorns and toss any that are no good. Start with a float test — dump your harvest into a bucket of water, then discard any acorns that float to the top immediately since they have likely been infested by insects. One caveat, though: droughts can make perfectly good acorns float. So if most of your harvest rises to the top, it’s worth cutting a few open (see the next section) to make sure you’re not throwing out perfectly good nuts.

Another test is the cap test. If the cute little acorn cap is still affixed to the top of your nut, toss that acorn out. These are generally nuts that have been aborted by the tree and are not fully formed.

Once you start shelling the acorns (next step!) you might want to refer back to the collage above since I’ve labelled a fw other problematic signs to look out for.

 

Step 3: Shelling acorns safely

Cut acorns in half lengthwise using pruning sheers.

Cut acorns
Freshly frozen Chestnut Oak acorn above. Dried and stored-at-room-temperature Black Oak acorn below.

When you’re ready to start the multi-week process of turning acorns into flour, take some of your red-oak-group acorns out of storage or partially defrost your white-oak-group acorns by letting them sit on the counter for a few hours. Then you can decide how you’ll get the shell off.

A hammer works on acorns just like it does on walnuts. However, Austin prefers a quieter method: cutting each acorn in half longwise with pruning shears.

Caution: this can be dangerous! To save your fingers, put the acorn into the shears then remove your fingers before squeezing the handle.

Either way, you’ll have to peel off the shell next. This is really simple with red-oak-group acorns since they’ve been dried for storage and often fall right out. With white-oak-group acorns, you can use a nut pick, a corkscrew, a knife, or even your fingers to separate the meat from the husk.

One of our workshop participants bought his kindergarten-age daughter and she did a pretty good job prying out nut meats. So apparently child labor works too.

Tools for picking out acorn nuts.

Step 4: Grinding acorns into meal

Acorn halves in a blender

Blended acorns.

The next step is the easiest (as long as you own a blender). Put your shelled acorn halves into the blender, add water to a bit above them, then blend.

The goal is to create something with a smoothie consistency. Don’t blend too fine or leaching (the next step) will be problematic. You’re going for a fine meal rather than a flour. This step should only take a minute or so.

Now pour your blended-up acorns into a canning jar or other container. Leave enough room to add about twice as much water as acorn slurry. You’ve already begun:

Step 5: Leaching out tannins

Leaching tannins from acorns.
Right: Fresh acorn slurry and water is tan-colored. Left: Older acorn slurry and water darkens as it oxidizes. Also, note the pale layer at the bottom — this slurry was ground too fine and created an impermeable sludge that isn’t leaching properly.

The reason we’re not all nibbling on acorn muffins daily is because the nuts are full of chemicals that really mess us up, notably tannic acids and phytic acids. Both taste bitter, which is our taste buds’ warning that we shouldn’t ingest them. Luckily, all it takes is water and time to take these problematic chemicals out.

The easiest (but also slowest) leaching method is to let the acorn slurry sit in water for roughly two weeks (white oak group) or three weeks (red oak group). You need to change the water at least twice daily during this period by carefully pouring off the liquid on top then refreshing it. During that time, tannic and phytic acids will naturally seep into the water and be discarded.

You’ll know your acorn mush is done when it no longer tastes bitter. As I mentioned, this takes a while! You can speed the process up by having a higher proportion of water to acorn or by changing the water more than twice a day. Alternatively, you can speed up the process using wood-ash lye or heat, but I’ll let you read up on those alternative methods elsewhere.

Step 6: Storing and cooking with acorn flour

Acorn shellsOnce your acorn flour is no longer bitter, it’s time to strain more of the water out by pouring the acorn mush into a cloth bag and squeezing. Then you can either use the mush right away, freeze it wet, or spread it on a cookie sheet to dry before storing at room temperature. (This last method is best for baking that requires good measurements.)

We didn’t, unfortunately, get to taste any of the leached acorn goodness at the workshop I attended, so I can’t comment on that part of the process. Overall, though, turning acorns into food looked less active-time-consuming than I’d expected, although the two-to-three-week wait definitely means that if you start today you can’t have acorn pancakes for Thanksgiving!

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The best time to harvest ginger roots

Newly harvested ginger roots

Last year, I wrote that, when growing ginger in the home garden, you should wait to harvest until after the leaves die back in the autumn. Now I’m not so sure that’s true.

This data isn’t actually from my own garden (although I am eating the result!). It all started when Mark’s mom cut up one rhizome to grow in a corner of a garden bed for my sake. “Harvest whenever you want,” she said.

When Mark and I dropped by at the end of September, the ginger plants still seemed to be growing so I decided to wait. But between then and the end of October, a light frost killed back all of the plants except one.

Baby ginger roots and mature ginger roots

The ginger that kept its top turned out to be at its peak and made delectable pickled ginger. The plants that had died back came out of the ground with tougher skins (like what you’d find in the grocery store) and several were rotting.

Since pickled ginger is my favorite use for the rhizome and the recipe demands “baby” roots, I’ll aim to harvest before the first freeze next time. For folks who store their ginger on the shelf, you’ll definitely want to wait longer so the protective outer skin will form (although not so long you get the rotting I dealt with).

Not sure if that means harvesting immediately after the first freeze or before, although I suspect the trick is to start root pieces inside so the plants hit maturity before cold weather comes to call. I’d love to hear from folks who have experimented and figured the sweet spot out!

Fall harvest

As a side note, growing ginger in a garden bed instead of in a pot definitely resulted in higher yields. And it was less finicky! So much so I might actually grow ginger myself next year rather than begging my mother-in-law to do the hard work for me.

In the meantime, I’m just enjoying my pickled ginger mixed into steamed veggies. That and hoping for more rain to boost our parched fall garden’s yields.

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Spiralized squash marinara

Spiralized squash marinara

Are you swimming in summer squash like we are? While you can leave the excess on unsuspecting, non-gardeners’ porches, I’ve found the following one-pot recipe makes eating lots and lots of zucchini and other summer squashes so delicious the bounty ends up in your own belly instead.

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium summer squash of any type (as long as it’s straight enough to spiralize)
  • 7 or more roma tomatoes
  • salt, pepper, and oregano to taste
  • a pre-cooked protein (ground beef is the traditional choice, but use your imagination!)
  • parmesan cheese

One pot spiralized squash dinner

Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze each one to release starter juices. Spiralize the squash and add it to a skillet along with the tomatoes. Cut through the mass of “noodles” a few times to shorten them. Add the salt, pepper, and oregano and cook on high heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have turned into a sauce and the squash noodles are al dente. Stir in the pre-cooked protein then garnish with parmesan and chow down!

How about you? Do you have favorite summer squash recipes that let you use up everything your garden produces?

 

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Summer harvest tips: Peppers, chanterelles, tomatoes, and beans

July harvest

It’s harvest season! Mostly, this post is just pretty pictures I couldn’t resist snapping while bringing goodies in out of the garden and woods. But here are a few tips to add redeeming value:

  • Go ahead and start those peppers early! Last year, our lunchbox peppers (started inside two months before our frost-free date) had only given us a bit of color before the fall frosts nipped them. So this year, I moved things back another three weeks. Sure enough, we’re already harvesting our first orange peppers in the middle of July. Success!
  • Assertively fling the dirt out of mushrooms. I thought it was really clever to outsource cleaning wild-harvested mushrooms to Mark, but since you all can’t do the same I asked him for his secret. He told me he assertively flings dirty chanterelles into a white bowl. Most dirt flecks will pop off (and be easy to see against the white). Then he scrapes any remaining dirt off with a knife.

Summer bounty

  • Save tomato seeds while making sauce, soup, or juice. Do you have enough tomatoes that you’re starting to cook them up? Set aside an extra minute to save seeds from your favorite varieties in the process.
  • Freeze a bit at a time as you cook dinner. Another thing that’s easy to put off is food preservation. But if you just steam a handful of extra beans every night then sock them away in the freezer, they add up fast!

How’s your garden and pantry growing?

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Gooseberry Fool taste test

Bowl of gooseberries

Fourteen years ago, Mom sent me her family recipe for Gooseberry Fool. Foolishly, I waited over a decade to give it a try. I also tweaked the ingredients a bit based on other recipes on the internet (and on Mom’s memory that the Fool she ate as a kid was thickened with an egg).

The recipe I used:

  • 1.5 cups of gooseberries, washed but with the stems and tails still on (plus a few raspberries)
  • a bit of water
  • 1 Tablespoon of sugar
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup whipped cream (ours was homemade, but I assume you could use the stuff in the can)

Cook the gooseberries and sugar over medium heat with just enough water so they don’t burn. Once the berries burst, remove them from the heat and send them through a foley mill (or use another method to get rid of the skins and most of the seeds).

In a separate container, mix the milk and egg well. Pour the eggy-milk mixture into the gooseberry puree and return to the heat, stirring constantly until it bubbles and thickens.

Cool the new mixture completely, then stir in whipped cream. Top with a raspberry if you have any left.

Gooseberry fool

Then it was time for the taste test.

Anna: “It’s okay, but I like the raw berries better.”

Mark (who’s only so-so on raw gooseberries but hates to complain about food I put in front of him): “Hm. It’s… Um… Did you say there’s also the option of chocolate cake?”

I guess there’s a reason Gooseberry Fool isn’t a mainstream recipe any more…

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Growing and cooking homegrown asparagus

It’s asparagus season and high time for an asparagus post! I’m not going to regurgitate the information you can find in any book or website about giving your plants a few years to get their feet under them before starting to harvest, keeping the weeds at bay, etc., though. Instead, I thought I’d share a few observations I’ve made over the last decade plus of growing our own asparagus then gorging on the harvest.

Handful of asparagus

Our favorite variety

Don’t buy purple asparagus expecting it to look pretty on your plate. As soon as you cook them, purple spears turn green.

But do plant Purple Passion! Mark’s mom gave us five plants the same year we planted our main patch and they’ve turned out to be the earliest producers and the heaviest producers in our garden.

 

Early harvests

For the earliest harvests, rake back the mulch and any top-dressed compost a couple of weeks before you expect to see spears. This will let the ground warm faster and will buy you perhaps a week over your non-raking neighbors’ plots.

Of course, that opens you up to freeze damage which will melt your delicious veggies into goo. So, when you expect a freeze, head out and pick every spear in sight. Well, almost every spear. If an asparagus plant is less than three inches tall, I’ll instead take a leaf from my mom’s book and drop a handful of that raked-off mulch back over top for freeze protection. No need to remove it after freeze danger passes either. Pointy asparagus will push right on through.

 

Cutting up asparagus

Delectable roast asparagus

Unlike grocery-store asparagus, ours tends to come out of the garden with some tiny spears and some huge spears. If they go into the oven all different sizes, the smallest spears will burn before the bigger ones turn sweet. So if you’re like us and crave the caramelized sweetness of asparagus roasted in olive oil until the edges go brown, be sure to cut up your spears to make them evenly sized.

That’s all there is to years of delicious harvests. Enjoy what we consider one of the easiest and most dependable crops!

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Favorite fall apple varieties

Stayman Winesap Apple

Our local farmer’s market has the most apple varieties I’ve ever seen, all harvested close to Athens, Ohio. As a result, I’ve been running taste tests over the last few years, picking new (and old) favorites.

Before I go on, I should tell you what I like in an apple — a good blend of sweet and tart, preferably also crisp (although taste is more important to me than texture). You won’t find apples like these at the grocery store even if they share these names. Head to your own farmer’s market, fruit stand, or U-pick orchard to find the tastiest treats.

Okay, which varieties won the prize? The first one is the old standby I’ve been enjoying since I was a kid — Stayman Winesap. When caught at its peak, this is an A+ apple. If harvested a bit too early, it tends toward sour and might be more of a B+. (Look for the bright red skin as a visual clue of sweetness.) Later in the winter, Winesaps turn mushy and are more of a B.

Goldrush Apple

Goldrush was a new one on me, but has become my go-to apple in the winter. It’s a little sweeter than Winesap but still has some tartness and a good flavor complexity. Plus, it stays crisp for quite a long time. The tastiest Goldrush apples tend to have a bit of a red blush, but even the solid yellow ones are an A to A+.

Liberty Apple

I’ve yet to find Liberty appples being grown by a traditional farmer, but homesteaders often plant them because they’ll bear fruit without any chemical sprays. They’re a bit denser than the others but boast a flavor explosion that definitely beats the pants off any other apple I’ve eaten. That said, I can’t be sure whether the difference is the variety or the cultivation method. Beyond-organic techniques lead to lots of micronutrients in the soil which in turn tend to turn flavors up extra high. Regardless, this is a solid A+ apple, maybe an A++.

I can’t wait to hear the results of your own taste tests. And if you end up with way too many apples after buying up every variety at the local farmer’s market, definitely try making a vat of skin-on applesauce.

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Harvest End Soup

When your harvest looks like this:

Last big harvest

It’s time to cook this:

Harvest end soup

Ingredients:

  • 6 cups of cherry tomatoes (or 2.5 cups of stewed tomatoes)
  • 1 chicken breast with bone in (or 3 cups of chicken stock and one cooked chicken breast)
  • 1.25 cups of chopped sweet peppers
  • 2.5 cups of carrots (or some combination of carrots and sweet potatoes)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon paprika (I used unspicy, but you might like it spicy)
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 2 cups of green onion tops, chopped into small pieces
  • sugar (to taste, if your tomatoes are late season and sour)

Serves 4.

Optional serving suggestions:

  • Stirring in cheese is always yummy at the end. Parmesan works but an herbed goat cheese was amazing!
  • Mark likes bread on the side.

Adding spices to a soup

How to make it:

This is a basic soup recipe, so you don’t really need to read this part. Here’s what I did:

  • I cooked the chicken in the instapot with a bit of water for 10 minutes on the meat setting. Once this was done, I picked the meat off the bone and put the bones back in the instapot with three cups of water to cook for an hour to make broth. Cooking longer would have been better, but I was impatient.
  • Meanwhile, I cooked the cherry tomatoes in just a little water until they were soft (about ten minutes). Then I ran them through the foley mill to remove the skin and most of the seeds. If I was using roma tomatoes I wouldn’t have bothered with this processing, but cherry tomatoes are very seedy! I suspect foley mills are not the modern way to do this — please comment if you use a different gadget to get the same result…
  • Next, I mixed the processed tomatoes with everything except the chicken, the broth (because it wasn’t done yet), and the sugar. Cooking this mixture for about an hour on medium to low heat will soften the vegetables, at which point you can remove the bay leaves then use an immersion blender to create a relatively smooth texture. (If you prefer vegetable chunks, skip the blending step.)
  • By this point, the chicken broth was done, so I added it into the main pot along with the cooked chicken breast (broken up into bite-size pieces). The soup probably would have been even better if I’d simmered it for about an hour with all ingredients in the pot, but I was hungry and it was delicious just thrown together like this!

Carrot harvest

Side notes:

I used the littlest carrots from the harvest (on the left in the photo above), which wouldn’t keep long in storage. If you have sweet potatoes, I’d recommend using half carrots and half sweet potatoes, in which case you shouldn’t need any sugar.

If you prefer beans over meat, chickpeas are your best option in this soup.

Soup color depends on tomato color. I usually make it with red, but our tommy-toes were yellow this year. It tastes the same either way.

What did you turn your last big harvest of warm-season goodies into?