wild spring kale salad with tahini miso dressing. homemade healthy

Wild edibles are popping up everywhere, from juicy chickweed to bitter dandelion to sticky cleavers. Miner's lettuce is sprouting from the moist shade of trees; a delicious and refreshing snack to come upon on a hike. All we have ready to harvest is kale, a flat-leaf red russian variety that is so sweet and tender right now. Eating it raw in a salad has been my go-to lunch almost every day this early spring.

Mixing the kale with the freshly picked wild edibles is a fun variety of flavors and textures, and the combo packs dense nutrients into a delicious meal. Wild foods contain more phytonutrients and minerals than the modern cultivated varieties, as much of the nutrition has been bred out for other traits, like drought-resistance, size, taste, color, and shelf life. An article written by one of my UC Berkeley professors, Katherine Milton, argues that the prevalence of wild foods in the hunter-gatherer diet of our Homo sapien ancestors protected them from diseases of affluence: type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. that are so widespread today. These foods are different than our tame apples and spinach. Very different. 

candied citrus peels. homemade sweets

I'm definitely not a white sugar kind of person. I'm usually the one demonizing society's fetish of all things refined and white, especially sugar and how its so unhealthy. Its one of the root causes of widespread obesity and health problems due to its addictive and cheap accessibility. 

So with that...I was hesitant in making candied citrus peels. Because well of the word "candied" in the title, as well a the amount of white sugar in the recipes I found. 

But I had a ton of peels. Orange peels and lemon peels and grapefruits from my parents backyard. The little grapefruit tree in the back corner of the yard finally had a global warming bumper crop in southern california, and we rejoiced over the thick-skinned pink-white fleshed fruits. 

Anndddddd, with this overflow of fruits with beautiful skins with nutritional and flavorful potential, I couldn't just toss them out. That little grapefruit tree tried for years to pop those fruits out, and now I'm going to reject half the fruit? My ancestral homesteading brain told me there was a way to preserve and consume these bitter, fleshy rinds. 

chickweed pesto. homemade healthy.

chickweed pesto.homemade healthy.


Spring is blowing through the Rogue Valley here, with daffodils highlighting the sidewalks and fruit trees glowing with whimsical sweet blooms. Flowers everywhere! And tender spring greens too. I can't help but pluck the new flowers as they open themselves up to the world, adding more and more to our overflowing kitchen table.