Unconventional Seasonings.......

Remember when you were a kid and you'd spend aaallll day out in the woods?  'Hunting', 'foraging' and 'cooking'? Oh, was that just me? When I was a kid I use to like to gather all sorts of plants and branches and lichens, etc., and 'cook'. I quite often ate the stuff I made, too. Fortunately I had learned young what was edible and what was poisonous. While the 'food' that I made didn't usually taste all that hot, I loved doing it!

Then I grew up.
I still forage and use herbs and such, but just the standard stuff, you know, berries and such. I'd kinda lost the magic from when I was a kid making stuff from everything. Then a friend bought me this book. This is a guy who didn't lose that childhood magic. Oh, it's been wonderful rediscovering that! While I don't have any of the plants to work with that he does, there are a few possibles growing around here.

So, last night I decided to experiment with a beef roast. I went out and grabbed some old, dead grass (the only kind growing around here at this time of year), a little bit of artemisia frigida, some dead pine needles (I don't see why you couldn't use fresh, I just thought these went with the other stuff better), a bit of sweet clover I found, the last leaves off the apple tree and one pepperwood leaf, also known as california bay (gathered while on vacation this last summer). I also cut up an onion to lay on top because onion goes with everything and makes everything better.

I kind of snuck this in as my family is not always sure about some of my experiments. I did get some comments when I pulled it out and uncovered it. :) Everybody liked it, though. It was very mild since I went easy on stuff. I didn't want it to be too strong to drown out with gravy if it was a disaster. The gravy was mushroom gravy made from the pan drippings. That was really good! I think I'll try it again sometime in the crockpot, I think it will intesify the flavors and will definitely make it more tender. I have hard time getting tender roasts in the oven. I'm special that way.

This was soooo much fun and tasted good enough to repeat that we'll do this again. The kids are excited about it as well. It's another good excuse to wander about outside gathering things. You should give it a try! :)