Beautiful, delicious and deceptively simple. What more could you want in a muffin? This particular muffin gave me great joy as well, because my daughter made it. My floral obsession is rubbing off.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup lilac blossoms and buds
crab apple blossoms to garnish

Preaheat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse lilac blossoms and make sure to remove all green parts of the flower as well as any bits of stems or leaves that fell in. Blend butter, sugar, egg and milk. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Stir dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Fold in lilac blossoms.

Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

After the muffins are cool, ice with your preferred icing and garnish with crabapple blossoms just before serving. Crabapple blossoms are perfectly edible. They do not, however, last very long. Collect them shortly before you need them and if needed, you can float them in water if they have to wait very long. They are stunningly beautiful when first placed on the muffin, but after an hour, they look pretty wilted.

You could candy them to make them last longer which I’m sure would be stunningly beautiful and delicious as well. But also way too much work for me.

I love them just the way they are.

 

“Mommy! Mommy! You should come out and try the honeysuckle. It is so good!”

“Yes, I’ve heard it’s delicious.”

I looked at Mouse, excitedly coaxing me outdoors. I had always wanted to try honeysuckle. So I gathered the children and followed them out the backdoor and up to the playground by the tiny church where we used to live.

“Um, this isn’t honeysuckle.”

She popped a little purple flower in her mouth before I could stop her. Bug and Bear followed her lead as I grabbed their hands and told them to stop.

“You never eat plants if you don’t know what they are.”

“But I do.”

“No, you don’t. You only think you do. I’ll show you a picture of honeysuckle. This isnt it.”

“But it tastes good.”

And such was my introduction to henbit, so called because chickens love it. And it is perfectly edible for humans as well, thankfully. Those little purple flowers are delightfully sweet and with my love of floral jellies, I’ve always wondered what a henbit jelly would taste like. But the flowers are awfully tiny and spaced too far apart for a convenient harvest.

So every spring, my girls sit down by the garden grazing on the tiny purple flowers and I wonder what else I could do with this first green of spring in bloom before even the dandelions.

This year I decided to do something besides wonder.  Instead, we gathered, rinsed and chopped then folded them into a simple batter for henbit fritters. And we served them with the redbud jelly I had just finished processing.

And everyone loved them.

Henbit fritters

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup kefir (or milk)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 cup diced henbit

Stir dry ingredients. Add liquids and stir until smooth. Fold in henbit and fry in butter. Serve with honey, syrup, jelly or whatever you like.

We are rather new to this whole wildcrafting thing and stick to the things I know or are not easily confused with other, less edible plants. Have you ever eaten wild foods? Or what would you like to try?

 

OK, before I get started with this review and giveaway, I thought I would share a couple of tips.

1. When you go to the store for the few things you need for a review of Hellmann’s® mayonnaise, and you forget the recipe, and you call your husband to read it to you, write down everything he says. If you skip what you think is obvious, you might get home without the Hellmann’s® mayonnaise. And beyond requiring a second trip to the store, it would be kind of embarrassing. Because it seems kind of obvious, you know?

2. It doesn’t really matter if your turkey has been defrosting in the refrigerator for several days, you really should check it before 2 o’clock the day you plan to cook it. As much as your children may enjoy helping you roast a turkey at eight in the evening, your Thanksgiving guests may not.

Not that I know anything about that from experience or anything. But the holidays are hectic, and I could see something like that happening. To you. Not me. Which is also to say that it is a good thing this recipe is so super easy and tasty because busy moms have enough to worry about.

Reading over the recipe, I was a little concerned about the mayonnaise. I love mayonnaise on a sandwich with some leftover turkey, but I’ve never had it cooked on the whole bird before. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that there was not any mayonnaise flavor at all to the finished turkey, even when I got bits of the mixture with the turkey on my fork. It just tasted like sweet onion, a bit of thyme and super moist turkey.

All you need to try this Super Moist Turkey Recipe for yourself is:

• 10 – 12 pound whole turkey
• 1 cup Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
• 1 large shallot or onion, chopped
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary, sage and/or thyme (or one teaspoon dried)
• 1 envelope Knorr® Roasted Turkey gravy mix, prepared according to package directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425. Remove giblets and the turkey neck. (Don’t throw them out, though. When you are done with the turkey, you are totally going to want to have them for stock. I’ll share my recipe after we’re done eating all the turkey!) Season according to taste.

2. Combine Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise, shallot or onion and herbs in a medium bowl and set aside. Then, starting at the neck, loosen the skin on the turkey and spread 1/2 of the mayonnaise mixture under the skin. (That part is kind of gross. Except I have an eight year old boy who thought that was about the coolest thing I ever let him do in his whole life.)

3. Arrange turkey, breast side up, in a large, shallow roasting pan. (I used my electric roaster and piled vegetables up around it.) Rub the remaining mayonnaise mixture over the outside of the turkey. Tent with heavy-duty aluminium foil.

Decrease oven to 325 and roast turkey 1 1/2 hours. Remove foil and continue roasting about an hour, basting occasionally with its juices, until it reaches an internal temperature of 180.

Let stand covered loosely for 20 minutes before carving. Serve with hot Knorr® Roasted Turkey gravy. And mashed potatoes, of course.

What is your favorite way to prepare turkey?

Just leave a comment to enter the sweepstakes from BlogHer and Hellmann’s® for a chance to win a $100 gift card to www.cooking.com!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion, adding @hellmanns to the end, and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

For more opportunities to win, visit the Hellmann’s Round-up page on BlogHer.com to read other bloggers’ reviews!

But wait! There’s more! (I’ve always wanted to say that.)

You can also try for a chance at winning one of four $250 grocery gift cards each week! Just cast your vote for your favorite turkey recipe at Hellmanns.com to enter to win. If there are more than 10,000 entries, the prize value will double to a $500 grocery gift card!*

For more information on contest or Hellmann’s^®products and recipes, visit Hellmanns.com

*No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. The Hellmann’s Turkey Challenge is sponsored by Conopco, Inc., d/b/a Unilever. Open to legal residents of the 50 U.S. & D.C., 18 & older. Begins 12:00 a.m. ET on 9/12/11 & ends 11:59 p.m. ET on 12/5/11. For official rules, visit Hellmanns.com.

Did you know the redbud is in the pea family? I didn’t until recently, but if you go eat the blossoms, you will believe it. They taste just like peas. Think what an interesting addition to a salad that could be! I’m hoping to find out if I can get to the store before the blossoms are all gone, but for the moment I shall content myself with working amongst the bees for an interesting snack while harvesting the buds for jelly.

Because, as anyone who has followed this blog since last year knows, I love floral jellies.

I wasn’t so sure about this one. After all, the buds tasted like peas. The infusion smelled like peas. And whoever heard of pea jelly? But I’ll try anything twice. So now for the recipe:

Redbud Jelly

4 cups redbud buds (Make sure you know what you’re harvesting! I don’t know of anything you could confuse with a redbud, but just be sure, OK?)
4 cups boiling water, plus some extra water
8 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 packages dry pectin
8 cups sugar

Procedure:

Place your flower buds in a heat safe dish. Cover with boiling water. Cover and leave for 24 hours.
Strain out the flowers and squeeze out the excess moisture. Add enough water to the infusion to make four cups.
Stir in pectin and lemon juice. Bring to a boil.
Add sugar all at once, return to a boil and boil for one minute. Skim the foam and pour into jelly jars. (I got eight from this recipe.) Process as you would any other jelly in a hot water bath.

I think this is the most beautiful jelly I have made yet. It was perfect. I love the color. The jelly is clear and there are few bubbles. It set nicely, with that perfect jiggle-on-the-end-of-your-spoon consistency. And did I mention what a lovely color it is?

I left the foam on a plate to cool for our first sample and it was delicious. It wasn’t quite lilac jelly, but it has a nice tangy flavor. A lot of that is from the lemon juice you have to add which gives most of your floral jellies a citrusy taste, but it is definitely a pleasant, light flavor. And it doesn’t taste anything like peas.

Makes me wonder what pea jelly actually would taste like.

If there’s one thing I fell in love with in southern Texas, it was aguas frescas. Silly thing is, I never realized just how easy it was to make. All that stood between me and the most refreshing beverage on earth was a little melon, some water and sugar. And of course the knowledge of what to do with it all.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups cubed watermelon
• 12 cups water
• 1 cup sugar

Directions

• Add watermelon and four cups water to a blender and blend thoroughly. This brought my children up from the basement asking for milk shakes. You can see why we have a blender.
• Pour in a pitcher and add the rest of the water.
• Add the sugar and stir well.
• Chill in the refrigerator. This is a beverage best served cold, but without ice. The ice dilutes the flavor too much. If you must use ice, cut back on the water a little.

Now isn’t that the best, most refreshing summer drink you’ve ever tasted? It’s really good with cantaloupe, too. In fact, I think I prefer the cantaloupe aquas frescas, though I don’t actually like eating cantaloupe. Serve with a little pollo con aguacate and have yourself a Mexican street stand night!

(Pollo con aquacate with aguas frescas was the first thing I ever bought at a street stand in Mexico. I have no idea how it was made, but my made up recipe goes something like this: two chicken breasts diced and fried over medium heat. Mash and stir in one avacado in the last minute or so of cooking. Serve in tortillas with sour cream.)

And when you’re all done with that, you can preserve some of the deliciousness of late summer’s bounty with some watermelon rind jelly.

Ever since Almanzo’s older sister chided her younger brother for wasting his watermelon rind on his pig in Farmer Boy, I’ve wanted to try watermelon rind jelly. I mean seriously, what good is watermelon rind? Up until now, I’ve fed it to the chickens or put it on the compost pile but couldn’t help but wonder what old time deliciousness we were missing by tossing aside the rind.

So I finally tracked down a recipe and Mouse made some for the county fair.

Watermelon Rind Jelly

Ingredients

• 4 cups cubed watermelon rind (not the hard green peel! Just the soft whitish green part you normally don’t eat.)
• 3 ounces liquid pectin
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or ginger. I want to try that next!)
• 3 1/2 cups sugar

Directions

1. Puree watermelon rind in a blender.
2. Add watermelon rind puree, lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. Add the liquid pectin and continue cooking for fifteen minutes. Stir to keep from burning and skim the foam.
4. Remove from heat and process in a hot water bath.

Now we must wonder no more and our first batch turned out so good, I may buy our next melon for the rind.  Fortunately, I’ll never have to worry about what to do with all the left over red stuff.

(Unfortunately, my camera isn’t playing nicely with my computer or I’d share a picture of one of my children enjoying the juicy fruit. Maybe the one in which my 18 month old son is covered in seeds after a watermelon seed spitting war.)

Disclosure: The link is an affiliate link and I could theoretically earn a few cents from it. It’s never happened before, but you know. In theory, it could happen.

Summer is here and getting hot, hot, hot! It’s the perfect weather for yogurt: yogurt over fresh fruit for a light breakfast, blended with frozen fruit for an afternoon smoothie or frozen for a refreshing treat as the temperature rises. Unfortunately, our little one quart yogurt maker can’t keep up with the demand this time of year, but it doesn’t have to.

After all, all that handy little appliance does is keep my culture at 85 degrees or so until I turn it off. With outside temperatures staying in the 80s and 90s, there is no need whatsoever to plug in my yogurt maker and I can now make yogurt by the gallon.

All you need is a little yogurt, a lot of milk and a pan to heat it in.

Ingredients:

8 oz yogurt (plain, unsweetened and with live, active cultures)

1 quart milk

Procedure:

1)  Heat milk to about 180 degrees Fahrenheit to thoroughly pasteurize but do not let it boil. This makes sure the only bacteria you culture is the yogurt making bacteria (lactobacillus acidophilus). I’m real exact about this. I stick my pinky in the milk and if it “bites,” it has achieved the proper temperature.

That’s because I learned to make yogurt from a Kurdish woman and I was under the impression they weren’t in the habit of using kitchen thermometers.

2)  Set milk aside to cool to somewhere between 80 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Again, you can double check with your pinky. If it is slightly warmer than lukewarm, it’s ready.

3)  Stir in yogurt. Or should I say lightly mix in? The more you stir, the more sour your yogurt will be. I usually add a little milk into my yogurt and stir to make it liquidy then stir that into the milk with three or four slow strokes.

4)  Cover and set aside for eight to ten hours where it will stay warm. A covered porch, a garage, or if you’re fortunate enough to not have AC like us, then you can just set it on the counter.

5)  Refrigerate when thickened and sweeten according to taste. With sugar. With honey. With homemade mulberry syrup. With your favorite jelly. Or just eat it plain. It’s that good.

Now, the ingredient proportions do not need to be exact. You just need a little yogurt to get your yogurt started, but this proportion seems to work well pretty consistently without taking too long. And you know the best part? You just need to save back some of this batch to start your next batch! No need to buy more yogurt for your next batch.

After awhile, the yogurt culture will get “tired.” Meaning that you’ll suddenly have a thin batch. Then you know it is time to buy a new container of yogurt to start your next batch. This usually happens to me when I leave the yogurt starter in the refrigerator for a few days before trying to start the next batch. The sooner you use it, the better it will be.

Your homemade yogurt may not be quite as thick as store bought, but it tastes much fresher and you have complete control over how you sweeten and flavor it. After awhile, you will notice that store bought yogurt has a sort of strange, gelatiny feel to it. That’s because a lot of yogurts are made with a thin yogurt thickened with gelatin.

Yours is 100% yogurt, 100% fresh and 100% delicious!

The mulberry, though actually a collective fruit rather than a proper berry, is a nutritious little thing that grows wild in many places. They grow on relatively small trees and remind me somewhat of blackberries though not quite so delicious. They’re fragile, don’t store well, are sort of a pain to collect when they’re growing at the top of a spindly tree but so worth the effort if only you know what to do with them.

What you do with them is make jelly or syrup. This is how we do it.

1. You need a source of fresh mulberries. About a month ago, a rumor began circulating that we had a mulberry tree on the property. When I finally got around to walking down with the children, we discovered not one, but two mulberry trees.

2. You need children. Preferably your own since you’re going to send them to the top of a tree and get them back slightly discolored.

The goofy grin has nothing to do with mulberries, however, and everything to do with pointing a camera at a five year old.

3. You need patience and lots of time. For three days, I sent the children out to collect mulberries. For three days, I received purple children and three or four berries in return. I finally joined them and the bucket was filled surprisingly quickly. I even still got purple children out of the deal. And they weren’t the only ones enjoying the harvest. See this purple little bill? It led me to yet two more mulberry trees.

4. You need a recipe of some sort. This part proved about as difficult as getting children to put berries in a bucket rather than their mouths. Maybe it was a good thing I had an extra three days to search.  See, everything I found included corn syrup and seriously the main reason I am willing to go through the trouble of making my own syrup is to get away from the corn syrup in everything.

But then I finally found this, a recipe for Sharab El Toot. And for the homeschooler in me, it was a wonderfully educational adventure to incorporate into the mulberry picking. The children didn’t like the end product so much. Well, except for L.E.Fant who drank everyone else’s, but the pictures on the site were lovely and we all enjoyed sampling some Lebanese refreshment.

This is a slightly modified recipe, intended for canning. And let me tell you, this stuff is fabulous on ice cream. Wow. After having some at my parents’ house, I went out and bought ice cream just to put the syrup on.

Mulberry syrup

4 cups mulberry juice
8 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice

To get the juice from the mulberries, you can use a food mill. But we don’t have one. So I threw them in a pot with a bit of lemon juice and a bit of water and heated them up while squishing with a potato masher. Once it was heated and mushy, I poured the mess into a muslin bag and tied it over a pot to drip overnight. In the morning, I mushed the bag until I couldn’t get any more dribbles out.

You can add some syrup to the mush to make jam, or fold it into muffins. I, however, was a bit lazy about separating all the little green stems from the berries so I fed the mush to the chickens who were already filling the hen house with purple poo since discovering we had mulberry trees. They were pleased.

Add the lemon juice and syrup and heat slowly. Bring to a boil, stirring continuously. Cook down to desired consistency. Or add 1/2 cup of pectin, but we just cooked it down. Skim the foam regularly for a nice clean syrup. Process in a boiling water bath.

Try some Sharab El Toot. If you like flavored waters, you’ll love it. If not, well, at least you’ve tasted a bit of Lebanon. Then get some ice cream and try not to overeat.

(Image courtesy oceandesetoiles’ Flickr photostream under a Creative Commons license.)

Enjoy! If I don’t post for another week, just know I’m feverishly collecting mulberries to replenish my dwindling stores before they’re gone for the season!

canning preserving syrup mulberry syrup

We have a field of red clover, otherwise known as a pasture, on our property. I’m sure the bees will love it when they get here. The goats as well. Everyone seems to love clover and if you’ve ever sucked on those little purple flowers on the flower head, you know why. If not, well, I’m afraid you may not have had an adequate upbringing. Take a moment to find some nice red clover, pull it apart and share it with your children.

Anyway, it’s a flower and it’s edible so of course I had to make jelly out of it.

I wasn’t as sure of this one since clover has such a delicate flavor to begin with. It has neither the fragrance, nor the strength of lilac or black locust. That, and I had difficulty finding a recipe. If the jelly were all that good, it seems like it would be easier to find instructions on how to make it.

So I started out with the same basic infusion I used for lilac jelly, black locust blossom jelly and dandelion jelly.

For the clover infusion:

4 cups boiling water
4 cups clover flower heads (This part was way easier with clover. All parts of the plant are edible, and none of them particularly offensive. While it is beneficial to use only the actual flower head, a little green isn’t going to have a noticeable effect on the jelly.)

Place clover in a glass or stainless steel container, cover with boiling water and leave it steep overnight. Strain out flowers and squeeze out excess water, reserving liquid for the jelly.

For the clover jelly:

4 cups infusion (add water to replace what was lost in straining)
8 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 packages powdered pectin
8 cups sugar

Add lemon juice to the infusion, stir in pectin and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add the sugar all at once and bring to a rolling boil. Boil for one minute, skim and pour into jelly jars. Process like you would any other jelly. Here’s a great tutorial from Owlhaven.

I was pleasantly surprised at the flavor. It was light, but very pleasant. I loved the color, and lamented that I don’t seem to have the whole bubble free jelly thing down, yet. I tried pouring it into the jars quickly, but I think the real issue was that the jelly was already setting before I got it into the jars. You’re not really supposed to double recipes when using powdered pectin, or so I’ve heard. Maybe this is why? Or maybe I’ll just figure it out in time. No one around here really cares, anyway, so long as it tastes good on bread. And it does.

Then I found another recipe for an infusion. And of course I had to try it. Both with the juice and with the wine.

For the clover infusion:

5 cups apple juice or white wine
2 cups clover in a glass or stainless steel dish

Bring juice or wine to a boil and pour over clover. Cover and let sit until cool. Or, uh, overnight if you get busy and sort of forget about it. Strain and reserve liquid for the jelly.

For the clover jelly:

4 cups clover infusion
8 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
6 oz liquid pectin

Combine infusion, sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over high heat. As soon as sugar has dissolved, stir in pectin. Return to a rolling boil for one minute. Remove from heat, skim foam and process like you would any other jelly in a hot water bath.

I was quite pleased with the results. The jelly was picture perfect. Clear, no bubbles and that perfect wiggle-on-your-spoon consistency. I don’t know if it was the liquid pectin (which is supposedly happier with the whole doubling thing), the juice/wine or just that I was more conscientious about skimming foam during the whole process rather than just at the end. Either way, the jelly was beautiful.

My daughter wants me to enter it in the fair.

The clover infusion made with apple juice ended up tasting like apple jelly. It was a good apple jelly, with a slight unidentifiable flavor that added more character than most apple jellies have, but it was still apple jelly. And all hints at character were mostly lost once you stopped licking the knife and tasted it on bread.

The infusion made with the wine, however, was quite interesting. Maybe it was just the wine, but it seemed to bring out the flavor of the clover and accent it well. And the interesting flavor carries over to the bread, as well, which is a nice bonus since I’m not in the habit of eating jelly by the spoon full.

A word of caution, however. That whole idea about alcohol burning off in cooking? It isn’t as true as you might like to believe. The jelly isn’t boiled long enough to be confident this is actually an alcohol free jelly. White cooking wine doesn’t have a particularly high alcohol content to begin with, but it is still good to keep in mind.

Note: If you go off in search of clover, remember to be sure it is clover that hasn’t been sprayed. Oh, and you can use any kind of clover. I just happen to have tons of red clover. If you don’t have tons, you can halve this recipe. It was doubled to begin with.

Happy jelly making!

red clover jelly clover jelly homesteading

OK, so they aren’t ours, per se. But I was quite excited to see honeybees working over our black locust blossoms. We just ordered two top bar hives, and are looking forward to our first bees!

The bees aren’t the only ones who like black locust, however. I caught my five year old munching on buds and told her to spit them out.

“But they’re yummy, mom!”

“But I have no idea if they’re poisonous, dear.”

“But they’re yummy!”

So I turned to trusty Google to find out whether to rush my daughter to the hospital or join her in her snack. Since some group in Pittsburgh has them as a feature destination on their edible walk, I decided to join her. And search out some recipes.

Polish Black Locust Blossom Fritters

(This is a modified version of this recipe using ingredients more readily available in the US, and with the sweetness toned down a touch…oh, and doubled. Because we’re a large family. The doubled version makes 12 to 15 fritters.)

2 cups black locust flowers*
2 apples (sour variety)
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 8 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup milk (preferably whole)
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of salt

1) As you collect the blossoms, try to take ONLY the blossoms. You’ll need to remove the panicles because all other parts of this tree are considered toxic. Remove anything you missed as you toss them in a mixing bowl.

2) Beat together egg yolk, vanilla, salt, condensed milk and milk.

3) Stir in flour and baking powder.

4) Peel and dice apples. Add to mixture.

5) Add blossoms. (Aren’t they beautiful?!) Stir.

6) Fry in a bit of oil and serve. Delicious!

We ate this for breakfast on Sunday, but it really is more of a dessert item. I should have noticed that with the condensed milk in the recipe. We actually only had one can of it in the pantry which is why I used milk for the second can, but it was delightful. I personally think a second can would have made it a little too sweet.

Next, I’m going to try some jelly. You know how I am with flowers and jelly. I can’t wait for our clover to bloom…I’ve noticed it on the roadsides, but ours seems stubborn.

black locust blossom fritters

[/caption] OK, so they aren't ours, per se. But I was quite excited to see honeybees working over our black locust blossoms. We just ordered two top bar hives, and are looking forward to our first bees! The bees aren't the only ones who like black locust, however. I caught my five year old munching on buds and told her to spit them out. "But they're yummy, mom!" "But I have no idea if they're" data-image="http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk163/gottsegnet/On%20the%20homestead/bee.jpg" data-site="Roscommon Acres">