A small sampling of some of the bounty foraged along the Forest Trail.
In the photo above are few apples, ripe rose hips, and some mahonia berries. Missing is the bag and a half of elderberries I harvested a few days later and the entire basket of apples.
Because the mahonia (Oregon grape) harvest was scant this year I gathered just a few to dry for adding to herbal tea mixtures for a fruity, berry note. The rest were left for the birds and other wildlife.
Wild rose with ripe hips. The furry growth is call a "moss gall" and is caused by a tiny wasp that lays its eggs along the stems.
Rose hips are said to be best gathered after a light frost to "sweeten" them - so says popular lore - but I've never noticed any difference and since I'm making rose hip syrup which will be sweetened with honey any negligible amount of extra sweetness isn't needed.
The hips are ripe and I'm more interested in their Vitamin C content for use in making Winter tea blends and rose hip syrup. Rose hip syrup is delicious on cornbread and pancakes.
To make rose hip syrup, simmer clean hips in honey to cover in a lidded pot until the skins begin to soften and wrinkle - 30 to 60 minutes. The hips contain seeds and tiny hairs, which you don't want in your syrup so don't crush or break open the hips. The usable part of the hip is the skin.
Allow the honey-hip mixture to cool slightly and strain out the hips. The syrup may be stored in the fridge for a couple of months or steam/water bath canned for longer storage.
The hips may dried and added to tea blends. Clean, whole dried hips may also be infused for 20 minutes in boiling water to make a delicious Rose Hip Winter tea.
A harvest of fresh elderberries and a filled up basket with gathered apples.
Elderberries "combed" from their stems with a fork.
After the slightly tedious task of combing the elderberries from their stems, they're ready to dehydrate for Winter use for making an immune enhancing syrup (sold expensively as Sambucus in health food stores). The syrup may be also used to create elderberry-champagne cocktails, elderberry-cider vinegar-honey shrubs, elderberry martinis, or hot mulled elderberry juice around the Holidays.
Of course one may preserve the berries by canning, but to save room in my pantry I dehydrate the berries. They reconstitute beautifully by adding three cups of boiling water to 3/4's to one cup of dried elderberries in a pot, covering them, and allowing them to sit and re-hydrate for an hour. Then bring the pot to a boil and allow to simmer 30 minutes with or without spices.
After straining off the berries and pressing to release any juices, you can simmer the juice, uncovered, to reduce it by half. After cooling to touch, I'll add raw honey (optional) to taste and refrigerate the syrup. It thickens more in the fridge.
With dehydrated berries in my pantry I can make a new batch of syrup, as needed, throughout the Winter.
Elderberries must be cooked for at least 30 minutes before consuming or canning the fresh berries. They shouldn't be eaten raw as the seeds contain a cyanide derivative that is neutralized by cooking. Additionally, the raw berries aren't tasty and may cause a stomach ache eaten raw.
Some folk add flavorings to simmering elderberries, such as cloves, cinnamon, anise, ginger. Taken by the spoonful every day ahead of Winter cold and flu Season the syrup - plain or flavored - strengthens the immune system.
Instead of adding spices - except to mull the liquid - I add only raw unfiltered honey to enhance the berry flavors nicely and add the goodness of raw honey to the mix. The "honeyed" version is more palatable to kids...and me.
After four to six hours in my American Harvest Dehydrator (factory set at 145-degrees) the elderberries are dried and resemble small black peppercorns.
Six pints of foraged apples were canned - skins on - for Winter dessert making. These remaining apples will be made into an apple pie for my nephew and a galette for me to celebrate Autumn.
I prefer to make galettes, instead of fruit pies most of the time, as they require only one crust and can be made any size I want.
Additionally, I don't peel apples and pears used in desserts I make for myself because I enjoy the texture and fiber the cooked skins add to the dish. However, I will make a traditional two-crust apple pie with peeled apples for my nephew for helping me to gather the apples.
Some years I'll dehydrate apple slices for snacks and to take camping, but instead I canned this Season's apples due to a sufficiency of dried apple slices.
This newly discovered apple tree bears tasty sweet-tart, crisp apples for eating and cooking with.
The forest trail is continually surprising me! For as many years as I've walked it, I've never seen this tree!
Walking along the densely conifer-lined part of the trail I happened to see an apple lying on the trail. I first assumed someone had dropped it by accident.
Then it occurred to me to look up. At first I didn't discern it among the green boughs of conifers. And, as the apples are mostly green there was little to give away their presence.
Suddenly, a change of perspective revealed the tree and its dangling fruit. I picked one and bit into it. It was delicious! I noticed that the sides of the fruit exposed to sunlight had a red blush.
Where had this tree come from?
Had there once been a cabin or homestead - now long gone - and this tree had survived?
Or, had some long ago settler thrown down an apple core and one of the seeds had sprouted?
There was no one to care for this tree. It wasn't on private property. Feral apples from seed aren't always tasty and can be fibrous and sour. Not this one!
Henceforth, I will gather apples here instead of driving to another location where I used to gather apples.
What a find! What a boon! What a treasure! The Forest Trail is a continual gift of bounty and abundance!
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My wild apple galette with unpeeled apple slices, a Grand Marnier/powdered sugar glaze, and topped with toasted, slivered almonds. I will cut it in quarters which yield four small slices just right for...ME!
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