Ashley Adamant

Homemade Gherkin (Cornichons)

July 22, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Every year we make our own homemade dill pickles, but what I really crave is those tiny baby gherkin. The French call them cornichons, but it all amounts to the same thing. Miniature sour flavor bombs popped into your mouth to offset the richness of the rest of a charcuterie plate.

I can never find any cucumbers small enough to make those itsy bitsy charcuterie board gherkins, so I decided to plant a big patch of cucumbers and grow my own. Now it’s time to reap the reward with homemade gherkins!

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How to Keep Deer Out of the Garden (Without spending a fortune)

July 22, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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So it’s happened again. You’ve spent months working on your garden, and a few days before the harvested deer come by to harvest it for you. While 8-foot tall deer fencing may be effective, it’s not practical for most gardeners. How do you keep deer from destroying the garden without spending a fortune?

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Foraging Pineapple Weed

July 19, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea) is often one of the first plants a budding forager tries as a kid. It can grow just about anywhere but has a gift for growing in the most uninviting locations. That includes places even dandelions cant take root.

Growing up in the desert in southern California, there was nothing but dust and sand on our playground. The only bit of life came from the tiny cracks in the asphalt handball courts, where enough moisture must collect from early morning dew. Pineapple weed thrived in those cracks when little else grew for miles in any direction.

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Homemade Blackcurrant Gin Recipe

July 18, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Blackcurrants ripen in mid-summer, during the hottest days or the year. Here I am in the kitchen whipping up a batch of blackcurrant jam on a hot July afternoon. While jam is delicious, I’m wondering if I’ve made the best choice. A cool cocktail to sip in the shade sounds a lot better right about now. I glance up to see a bit of gin on my shelf, and the last of the freshly harvested blackcurrants in my bowl land in a mason jar covered in gin. A quick blackcurrant gin is ready in as little as 24 hours, and it’ll still be plenty hot then too.

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Blackcurrant Jam Recipe for Canning

July 17, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Blackcurrant jam is one of those things that you just can’t find in stores. While you can argue whether or not canning is worth the time or effort, you cant argue with the fact that if you want blackcurrant jam you likely have to make it yourself. It is one of my favorite jams, and it’s a sad year when I don’t make time to put up a big batch.

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Using Red Clover for Food and Medicine

July 14, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Early on in my foraging days, I took a weed walk with a local well-known forager. I learned some of my very first mushrooms that day, but the most interesting finds were plants I already knew. Red clover grows just about everywhere on my homestead, and while I knew it was medicinal, I had no idea that it is also a valuable wild food source.

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How to Make Wild Foraged Clover Flour

July 14, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Getting your daily bread can be tricky if you’re out foraging. There are a number of wild plants that can be used as a wild foraged flour substitute, which will help stretch your food stores in times of need. They’ll also add flavor, nutrition and just plain fun.

Clover blossoms can be ground into a flour substitute that can substitute for up to 1/4 of the total flour in a recipe. While it’s not really “flour” in the proper sense, the ground blossoms add flavor and nutrition to plain white flour.

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How to Bake a Pie Outdoors in a Dutch Oven

July 13, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Baking a pie outdoors in a dutch oven isn’t any more complicated than indoor baking, and doesn’t heat up the house in the summer months. Once you get the process down, you can have a fresh homemade pie anytime you want, even while camping.

Dutch ovens are extremely versatile, and they can be used to bake just about anything you can make in a household oven. Baking a pie in a dutch oven is no different than baking a pie indoors. Start by making your favorite pie recipe, prep some coals and go to work baking a homemade pie outdoors without heating up the house.

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Zucchini Latkes

July 12, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Summertime cooking is all about quick and easy meals. These zucchini latkes are just that, quick, easy and a great way to use up a summer bounty of zucchini. They’re done before you can heat up the house, and they make a great breakfast, lunch or dinner.

For breakfast, we pair them with pickled beets, homemade applesauce or sour cream. Served alone, or alongside sausage, they’re a good start to the day. For lunch, they add a bit of substance to a summer salad, and since they’re quick and easy to prepare you’ll be back out in the garden before you know it.

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Cold Hardy Peach Trees for Zone 4

July 11, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Peach trees are normally associated with warmer temps in the south. Pensylvania Amish country is about the furthest north that you’ll find commercial peach orchards. I joked a while back that with climate change, we’ll finally be able to grown Peaches up here in Northern New England. It turns out, there are already a number of cold hardy peach tree varieties that are grown in zone 4, but it takes a bit of work to get them to fruit.

Cold hardy peaches for zone 4

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Ashley Adamant

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