Pink Rose Lemonade: A Sparkling Floral Refreshment
Embracing the natural beauty and flavor of roses in our lemonade allows us to celebrate the season in a unique and tasty way. Try making your own batch of this floral-infused refreshment and bring a taste of summer to your table with every colorful, refreshing glass.
Crafting Wild Rose Extract
This process of creating rose extract from our garden's bounty is a delightful way to bring a piece of spring into our home year-round. Whether used in refreshing beverages or as a natural flavor enhancer in sweets, the extract remains a testament to the beauty and aroma of roses.
Basketful of Blossoms: Foraging Wild Spring Roses
In the lush late spring of Scandinavia, we forage for wild roses, an invasive yet beautifully aromatic species. Harvested carefully to capture their peak aroma, these roses vary from lilac to white, each exuding a potent, citrusy fragrance.
Honoring an Old Friend: The Tanning of a Badger's Hide
We recently embarked on a poignant project to honor a familiar woodland companion, an old badger known to us from our garden. After finding it deceased, we carefully preserved its pelt through a meticulous tanning process involving skinning, cleaning, salt curing, a formic acid treatment, and finally, finishing with tanning oil.
Grinding up Wild Garlic Ramps Pesto
In spring, our kitchen buzzes with the making of wild garlic pesto, crafted not from traditional basil and pine nuts, but from the abundant wild garlic in our woods and a mix of leftover nuts from Yule—almonds, pecans, or whatever we have on hand.
A Wreath of May Flowers
In May, our family embraces the vibrant bloom of spring by crafting a wreath made from an assortment of wildflowers like dandelions, bellis, and bellflowers. Gathered and woven by our youngest, Bear, the wreath starts as a playful crown, symbolizing the joy and exuberance of spring. Later, it adorns our front door, welcoming visitors with its natural beauty.
Sugared Magnolia Stamen
In the lush season of spring, our garden’s magnolia trees are not just a visual spectacle but also a source of culinary inspiration. This time, we turn our focus to a less noticed but equally enchanting part of the magnolia flower: the stamen.
Our Guardian Magnolia tree
Our Magnolia soulangeana is more than just a tree; it is a symbol of our connection to nature, tradition, and the magical folklore of Scandinavia. Each spring, as it bursts into bloom, we celebrate its beauty and the life it brings to our woodland garden.
Crafting Magnolia Spice: A Floral Delight for our Kitchen
In our exploration of natural ingredients, we've transformed magnolia blossoms into a unique spice powder, perfect for enhancing dishes typically seasoned with cinnamon, cardamom, clove, or ginger. Using two methods—oven roasting for deeper, cardamom-like notes, and air drying for a lighter, citrusy essence—we convert the fragrant petals into culinary delights.
Iced tea with Magnolia Blossoms
In a glass, our magnolia-infused iced tea is more than just a beverage; it's a celebration of the transition from spring to summer, encapsulating the essence of both seasons.
Foraging for the first nordic spice: Garlic Mustard
Springtime in our woodland garden means foraging for garlic mustard, a plant known for its garlicky aroma and peppery flavor. Easily identifiable, it's a favorite of our youngest forager, Bear. Garlic mustard, or "Løgkarse," is historically significant as one of the first known spices, used in Denmark over 6,000 years ago.
Gyromitra Esculenta: The Forager's Pufferfish
Gyromitra esculenta, known as the "edible rock morel," is a forager's delicacy fraught with danger. Hailed as one of the tastiest mushrooms, it requires multiple water cookings to reduce its toxicity. While some savor its reputedly exquisite flavor, we approach this mushroom with caution, opting to forage and dry it for now, leaving the taste test for our later years.
Wild Garlic Porkchops & wild garlic ‘half-baked’ potatoes
Embracing the vibrant flavors of spring, our kitchen became a haven for wild garlic enthusiasts, turning a bounty of foraged greens into a feast. We crafted a meal that spotlighted the robust taste of wild garlic, seasoning pork chops generously with homemade wild garlic salt and pairing them with oven-baked potatoes topped with a dollop of wild garlic-infused butter.
Finding amber in the spring storms
In our family, the tradition of amber hunting along the Scandinavian shores is more than a seasonal activity; it's a cherished heritage, intertwined with milestones and memories.
The Daffodils of early spring
As Easter ushers in the spring, our woodland garden bursts into life with the blooming of daffodils, from modest wild varieties to grand cultivated ones.
Gækkebrev: The snowdrop teasing-letters of Easter
Gækkebreve, a cherished Danish springtime tradition, are playful teasing letters that come alive with secret rhymes challenging the recipient to guess the sender's identity, spelled out in dots (...).
Bonfire Baked Apples
Gathering around a bonfire to cook apples directly in the embers transforms a simple fruit into a special treat. Hollowed and filled with butter, cinnamon, cardamom, syrup, and sugar, then wrapped in foil and baked in the bonfire's glow, these apples become fragrant delights.
Crafting Wild Garlic Salt: A Forager's Secret to Year-Round Flavor
Wild garlic salt is a simple, yet transformative way to preserve the vibrant taste of spring's foraged greens, ensuring a year-round supply of their unique flavor. By blending chopped wild garlic leaves with coarse salt until achieving a wet sand consistency, and then drying the mixture, we create a versatile culinary staple.
Wild Garlic Butter
Our homemade wild garlic butter celebrates the rustic charm of foraging, with its uneven distribution of garlic creating a visually appealing, spotted look and a delightful variance in flavor.
Foraging wild garlic in the spring
In the spring, our foraging excursions lead us to the treasure of wild garlic, known affectionately as "Oniony onion" or by its Latin name, Allium Ursinum, which resonates with our little Bear as "Bear Onion."
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