Moonlady’s Kitchen

I’ve been foraging and collecting local fruits and herbs and in the process, a friend asked me if her asparagus which had gone to fern and flower was edible. I researched it a bit and found out it isn’t poisonous. Not to shirk an adventure, I collected a generous helping of the gone-by plant and headed home.  When trying to find out if something is edible, it is absolutely important to distinguish between an asparagus plant that is past season, and asparagus fern, which is a different plant. Asparagus fern is mildly toxic. Don’t eat it. If you are going to eat a plant, be sure you identify it first and don’t get it confused with something similar.  The first thing I tried was the most simple- I threw it in a pan to sauté it.  When sautéing in a pan wasn’t effective, I added some dregs from my homemade loquat wine bottle, which had yeasty bits to add some vitamin B and flavor to a sauté.  That was absolutely an abject failure. It did not soften at all and even after a long time on the h

I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic bringing out some sort of survival instinct or if it’s just a natural progression of a person with a black thumb who loves picking and eating stuff, but lately I have really taken to foraging. I’ve mostly been looking for dandelions but I stumbled across a huge patch of purselane and I remember finding out about it several years ago.  Have you ever heard of purselane?  It is usually regarded as a weed but it’s actually an edible herb that is full of vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and omega-3. You can find it everywhere, except where people are very very particularly manicuring their lawns.  It likes all the in between places and it seems to be popping up along the pavement, next to the house, and especially sunny places.  Since I’ve started increasing the foraging, I’ve been grabbing it by the handful from my yard and the wild places I’ve gone. I started using it in egg scrambles but it’s a bit stalky and the texture isn’t my favorite. (I’ve seen some

As my first post, I want to invite you to follow both my business page Moonlady's Kitchen and my food adventures here.  On the business page will tell you what is fresh or what specials I’m doing then.  (If I have a bounty I love to share- if it’s a product I’ll make a deal, and if it’s an adventure or an experiment I’m always looking for the adventurous to taste test for me).  I do several categories of items for sale Candied fruits (fruit+sugar) Dried fruits with no additional ingredients unless noted Jam and pickles (new-ish so still working the details out) Dried Herbs Hand (or body) scrubs  To see a List and prices, please check my product page:   https://www.themoonlady.com/p/moonladys-kitchen-product-page.html?m=1 I also want to walk you through my process.  The things that motivate me are reducing waste, eating food that is free of a lot of crazy additives, and finding new and interesting ways to change how I think about food.  My candied orange peels are a good example- we