Lavender Lemon Mousse with Sherry & BC Huckleberries

Light and fragrant with a zippy kick of booze at the bottom, what more could you want? Great summer dessert, especially, with the lavender flowers blooming right now. Substitute salmonberries, blueberries or raspberries if you don't have huckleberries.

Recipe
Serves 14 small portions
2 Cups whipping Cream - whip to stiff peaks
1 cup yogurt
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 Tbs grated lemon rind
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup - 3 cups berries (I used 1/2 cup for the one in the picture)
1 Tbs lavender flowers, in fine pieces
1/3 cup Amontillado Sherry ( or whatever booze you like, experiment)

Directions
Stir together yogurt, lemon juice, rind, 1/2 of the lavender flowers and sugar. Fold the cream into the yogurt mixture (don't overmix). Pour booze of your choice into the bottom 14 glasses with a tsp of berries.
If you are using a sour berry like huckleberries, dust them with a bit of sugar to taste
Then, spoon the rest of the mixture and berries into glasses in alternating layers. Dust the top with lemon rind and lavender flowers. Eat right away or chill.

Go for a Forage: Wild foods near Vancouver...

Elder flowers
Miner's Lettuce

Cleavers

Sweet Cicely

Watercress

Spring has pounced upon us, even though the warmth seems to have left us, lately. All sorts of tasty snacks are growing out of the ground. Wandering the forests and meadows of the Lower Mainland there are a few rules you should follow if you are interested in some unusual eats.

1. Take note of the water sources surrounding your planty prey. Watercress, for example, is very nutritious and grows near running water. It also absorbs toxins quite readily. So, if a stream has pollutants in it (near a non-organic farm for example) the plants may not be safe to eat. Unless you'd welcome the growth of a third eye.
2. Take plant cuttings, try not to disturb the roots, that way the crop will be replenished.
3. Be sure of what you are eating. Buy a plant book like Plants of Coastal BC (Pojar/MacKinnon) to help with identification.
4. Don't harvest near the road or sidewalks, unless you like dog pee and car gunk in your food.
5. Harvest with the seasons. Generally... spring = new shoots, spring/summer = flowers/fruit, fall/winter = fruits/nuts/roots

Plants to look for around now (May); licorice fern (sweet cicely), watercress, miners lettuce, silver dollars, cattails, sorel, cleavers, stinging nettles (taste like spinach, but harvest with gloves and steam before eating), blackberry leaves

Sauteed Cattails - BC Wild Foods - Experiment #1

I'm always on the hunt for new and unusual food sources that you can pick in British Columbia. Apparently, cattails are yummy; the female (non flowering) head can be cooked and eaten like corn (it doesn't taste like corn) and the young shoots can be cooked like asparagus.
I'm going to forage for some today and will report back!
Anyone tried them before and have a good recipe? I would love to hear from you.
Okay, I'm off to get my boots wet... chat soon.



I'm back from a successful hunt, found some cleavers (good in salads) and lemon verbena too. I pulled some of the inner shoots of cattails out to do some recipe tests with. Sauteed them up with green onion, olive oil and garlic. Very exciting. And..... they were tasteless and kind of slimy. Damn. They maybe a good addition to soup to thicken as a starch. That'll be next on my test plan.

Other foretold uses for these versatile plants include; using pollen as flour (this is supposed to be amazing), grinding the roots up into a flour, steaming the roots. I sense new experiments in my future.
Please, if you are going to try this on your own try not to decimate cattail stocks. They are a very important little ecosystem. I would leave the roots at least.

Sauteed Cattails - BC Wild Foods - Experiment #1

I'm always on the hunt for new and unusual food sources that you can pick in British Columbia. Apparently, cattails can be eaten two ways; the female (non flowering) head can be cooked and eaten like corn (it doesn't taste like corn) and the young shoots can be cooked like asparagus.
I'm going to pick and try this out today, I will report back!
Anyone tried them before and have a good recipe? I would love to hear from you.
Okay, I'm off to get my boots wet... chat soon.