Friday, April 16, 2010

Spring Foraging

Today I did some spring foraging outside...

Troy brought in some miners lettuce. He found it growing up by the barn. I tried the pretty leaves. They were very mild tasting. Much better than store bought lettuce. I think I will pick some for our dinner salad tomorrow night.



Right outside our house we have a beautiful mess of wild onions. They are really everywhere and multiply year by year. This year I decided to put them to good use.



I brought in several baskets full of them and washed them, cut off the bulbs and put them in the freezer for stews, chopped up the greens to use in tonight's potato salad. I also added them to our black bean and rice burritos we had for lunch. They are pretty mild tasting. Freshly picked and eaten, they pack a huge supply of vitamin C and the much coveted chlorophyll that keeps the misquotes from munching on you.



An idea for a healthy lunch or snack: Mash up an avocado and add some chopped wild onion, cayenne and sea salt. Spread on Sesame Rye crackers and add a couple tear drop tomatoes. MMM...



***Always make sure you know what you are eating whenever you are foraging. There are a lot of deadly poisonous plants out there. Wild onions will always SMELL like onions. If it doesn't smell like an onion, don't eat it!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Carmel By the Sea

This is the Inn we stayed in at Carmel By the Sea. Troy took it after a late night walk through the quaint little 1 square mile town. All the shops remind me of houses from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. You can walk down to the beach that is about 1 mile down the road. We saw maybe three other people out that night. It was so quiet, but the little shops are left lit up so we peeped through all the windows, the ocean lapping in the distance. It was a very magical night I will always remember.




We spent hours hiking the trails of Point Lobos. Every turn was filled with breath stopping beauty. Pictures cannot come near seeing.

Our second night we went to the ocean and shared a pint sized Rock Road ice cream and watched the sunset over the ocean.


The last day there we drove all over the coast line stopping about every few miles to take in the view. So many different landforms, so much awesome scenery. We used our binoculars to enjoy the seals and sea otters.






Boats on Fisherman's Wharf