Blueberry picking!
These are really bilberries, a low growing european blueberry, Vaccinium myrtillus.
They are vety tasty and good to have in the freezer for winter.
Archives for category: Foraging
Chanterelle mushrooms dried, ready to stash away.
Rehydrate and they are like new fresh mushrooms full of flavor, excellent for sauces, spreads, pizzas, whatever. Enough for a couple of years probably.
We made a last minute bicycle trip to the woods sunday afternoon to see if we could find some mushrooms to pick before the hunting season started. After quite a bit of searching we finaly found some and then a whole bunch more. We picked until it started to get dark. Chanterelles of different types.
Now to clean and dry them – the most tedious part of the job.
We were out on a yule excursion the other day and found these sloe. Delicious after the frost and thaw. The birds love them too.
Happy New Years Eve!
The whole crew made an excursion to the woods to pick berries and mushrooms.
Besides the traditional coffee break, we found blueberries, lingon berries and a few chantarelle.
And a blueberry cobbler for dessert.
The rest was dried, frozen or made into jam.
We’re getting ready to travel back home – a few stones and plants richer (as well as a lot of other stuff and experiences too).
Some last picts;
Seaweed washed up and dried (slejke). I wish I had a truck load for the garden.
I did get a bag full tho. 
Good enough to eat I bet. 
On an excursion to southern Gotland this morning we found some stuff to take home.
A nice piece of sandstone to carve. 
Some wild seedlings of a local maple. 
And some roots of wild horseradish and a wild garlicy leek called kajp (very tasty). I hope they like my clay soil. 
Out back we have a cement ring with flat sitting stones positioned around it where we often make a fire for cooking dinner. Last night the weather was still and relatively warm. We fried some breaded baltic herring.
Along with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, stir fried swiss chard, lingon berries and kimchi, all from our garden, it was an evening and meal to be remembered.
The only thing not local was the organic white wine from South Africa.
There are always some vegetables that survive the winter, especially this last mild one, like onions missed at harvest time and kale if it has been protected. Along with cubed tofu, these will make a great spring miso soup.
Lingonberries are very similar to cranberries. Smaller, but the flavor is about the same. I can’t taste the difference. Picking lingon is much easier too, but cranberries can be mass cultivated. The pickings were pretty slim around here, so we bought two buckets at the market.
Most go into plastic bags and into the freezer which is all full now.
Some make jam. My favorite is raw mashed lingon (rårörda lingon). Just mix in some sweetener and mash. This keeps well in the food cellar in jars that are not even sealed. Cranberries contain their own preservative. They also have many health benifits.
timogarden 