Teaberry (Wintergreen) Muffins and Tea

I spent a couple hours yesterday tromping around the woods gathering teaberry berries and leaves with the intent of making muffins and tea. 

At first, I had my plan that I would gather the required 1 cup of berries on my way out into the woods, then I would gather leaves on my way back. After I had gathered about 3/4 cup of berries, I realized, I really should be gathering the greens at the same time!

So.. I have determined the most efficient way of gathering teaberry.  Basically, when you see a berry (which is relatively few and far between compared to the vast landscape of greenery).. just pull the whole thing up!  These plants will definitely NOT suffer a loss if they are pulled up by the root. I originally just tried to pull the leaves along with the berry, but inevitably the whole plant would come up most of the time. I found that if I just put the plant stem between my cupped fingers and pulled up, I could strip off the green along with the berry. This turned out to be quite efficient and I was able to gather enough leaves and berries to make a large batch of tea and muffins. 

My page on teaberry will help you to identify the plant and give you information about the benefits if you want to attempt these adventures yourself. 


In order to make a medicinal tea:


Fresh leaves have to be fermented in water to develop the wintergreen in them. Pack a jar loosely with fresh leaves and cover it, set it in a warm place for several days until the water is bubbly. Warm the tea by setting it in a pan of hot water. This will be a strong, good-tasting minty tea. The leaves can be strained out and dried in order to use for a tea that won't be so strong. I will be putting them into the dehydrator to make a nice supply!


The muffin recipe I ended up with is:

• 1 cup oat flour
• 1 cup quinoa flour (you can create both of these yourself. I use my grain mill, but you could use a food processor or a coffee grinder)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 cup vanilla almond milk (you can use your preferred milk whether it be cow, soy, etc)
• 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup washed teaberry berries

Mix flours, baking powder, sugar and salt. In separate bowl mix egg, milk and oil. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well. (if you use quinoa flour I suggest letting it sit a bit to give the quinoa a chance to soften up a bit) Fold in berries. 

Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Oh wait, that's Stephen King. I saw him live last night in Lowell :)
.. He doesn't have anything to do with teaberry.. it's just cool!

Teaberry! (aka Wintergreen... aaka Checkerberry)

When I was out tromping around The Mashpee River Woodlands the other day, I noticed there was a grand amount of teaberry there.

  I think teaberry is the first wild edible I was ever introduced to. I can't remember when, and for the life of me I can't actually ever remember walking in the woods with my mother, but I KNOW she was the one that pointed it out to me. "It is the flavor of Clark's Teaberry Gum" is what she would always tell me. 

I knew of it as teaberry my entire life. I don't think I ever made the connection to wintergreen until I was going on a backwoods camping trip the week before Christmas 2010 with my buddy "Plane" Dave.  I made a comment about how much teaberry there was around and he said "All I see is wintergreen".  

Teaberry berries can be eaten raw or cooked. They have a kind of waxy wintergreen flavor. I have always remembered finding the berries in the fall and winter and so I thought they were a late season fruit, but when I was on the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2011 I found them in abundance. I have since then learned that yes, they come out in the late summer and they just hang on!  They are actually better after a frost, and will stay on the plant pretty much until something eats them. I love to snag them as I walk along. It's a lot of fun when blueberries are in season, to pick a few of each and have a festive little red and blue handful. .. ok.. it's fun in my head anyway :)

Teaberry berries have that kind of little star-ish end on them, similar to a blueberry. The fruit is definitely NOT a nice round berry. 

When broken open the berry has a kind of.. dryish, white inside. The only thing I can think of to equate the texture to would be .. like.. well..wet styrofoam, but it's not gross. 

**I feel like I need to make some sort of disclaimer here saying please don't go out and eat wild food without having explicit knowledge of what you are eating.. that being said.. this one is pretty easy to not screw up if you pay attention**

 The leaves can be eaten (and harvested) any time of year. They can be nibbled on raw or made into a tea. Native Americans brewed a tea from the leaves to alleviate rheumatic symptoms, headache, fever, sore throat and various aches and pains. The active ingredient found in the leaves and berries is methyl salicylate, and is closely related to salicylic acid - the forerunner of aspirin. Early medicinal formulas using wintergreen to reduce fever, body aches, and muscular pains, were probably quite effective. Unlike aspirin, a moderate internal dosage of wintergreen will relieve indigestion rather than inducing it.

To make the more medicinal quality tea:
Fresh leaves have to be fermented in water to develop the wintergreen in them. Pack a jar loosely with fresh leaves and cover it, set it in a warm place for several days until the water is bubbly. Warm the tea by setting it in a pan of hot water. This will be a strong, good-tasting minty tea. The leaves can be strained out and dried in order to use for a tea that won't be so strong.


You can make a quick tea just by breaking up fresh leaves and let it steep in hot water. On the Trail, I would treat myself to Teaberry tea when I wasn't having sassafrass (my favorite Trail tea.. hmm.. another blog ...)

I am always looking for things to do with wild edibles.. and in my searches, I came across a recipe for WINE!! (I still have a bottle of my Dandelion wine left from last summer)

I also found recipes for muffins and pies! The muffin recipe only calls for a cup of berries.. I think this will need to be attempted (and tweaked of course for using other than regular flour).


Natural Root Beer: (this totally looks like fun.. but.. 1 1/2 GALLONS of molasses?!?!?)

• 5 gallons water
• 1/2 cup dry yeast 
• 1 1/2 gallons molasses 
• 1/2 cup wintergreen leaves, rinsed & dried 
• 1 cup sassafras root bark 

Combine water and molasses and heat just to the boiling point. Remove from heat and allow to stand for two hours. Add the wintergreen, sassafras root bark, and yeast. Stir just until blended. Allow to ferment overnight at room temperature. Strain and refrigerate.


And of course.. wintergreen (any minty thing) crushed and placed at your doorways will discourage insects from intruding.

My Autumn Olive Jelly Experience

(I'm having a lot of fun finding great places to edit my pics.. this one was edited at http://www.picmonkey.com/)

  I first learned about Autumn Olive at a foraging workshop. It was not yet in season, so we were not able to see the fruit, but the instructor had a sample of fruit leather he had made from it. 

 This is that silvery tree you see along the highway. It's everywhere (because.. well.. it's an invasive species so don't spit the seeds out). That being said, I'm fine with it because it's really an amazing source of a very nutritious berry. 

  Autumn Olive (or Autumnberry) has some psychotic amount of lycopene which is just all around good for you. Great for your heart and it's being looked at as a deterrent for cancer of the lung, stomach, bladder, cervix, skin and especially prostate. The berries also contain high levels of vitamins A and C among other nutritional benefits.

Anyway, I gathered some of these berries a couple weeks ago (they have a nice long season through September and October) and made some fruit leather out of it. Easy-peasy!  Boil up the berries with a little bit of water.. (I didn't have my food mill then sooo) smish the boiled berries through a sieve to separate the seeds from the meats.. then I put it into my dehydrator and viola! Fruit leather!  I hadn't added anything to it, no sugar, no lemon juice .. nada. 

I employed (well, not technically..kinda more guilted) my oldest son into helping me harvest a bunch of berries for my jelly adventure.  When I picked the first time around I brought a bag with me and probably dropped (and ate) as many as I gathered. Since then I have procured a nice wide basket and David absconded with that and made a pretty good haul.
  I was excited because it was going to be a rainy weekend and making jelly would be a fun thing to keep me busy. Of course, I've never made jelly, so.. it was also going to be an adventure. 
  I looked up a few different recipes and of course, they all said "can according to instructions".  I haven't canned anything since I was a kid, so I was hoping for better instruction on this point.  Then on my canning jars box, it said something along the lines of  "boil according to recipe instructions".. not the help I was looking for. 


  So, I took 8 cups of Autumn Olive berries and 1 cup of water, brought it to a rolling boil, then let it simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring often. 
  

  I then took the boiled berries (mash) and put them through my food mill. I found that fewer berries in the food mill works more efficiently than more. (I love my food mill by the way) The pressed fruit then goes back in the pot. 

  All the recipes just said to use "one packet" of pectin, but none of them designate what size that packet was. I happened to have gotten the 0.4 oz packets of low or no-sugar needed pectin. I did this because as far as I am concerned these berries are sweet enough on their own.  But, all the recipes said to use sugar, so I figured for my first attempt, I would follow the rules, well.. kinda. They all said to use 3.5 cups of sugar, but I went with 3 cups of sugar. 
  At this point I mixed 1/4 cup of sugar with the pectin packet and gradually mixed that into the mash heating back up on the stove. After that was mixed in and at a rolling boil for a couple of minutes (stirring constantly), I put the rest of the sugar in and kept it at a rolling boil for about a minute. 
Meanwhile, I had boiled my jars and they were still in the warm water.  I pulled them out and filled 5 of them (with all my fancy shmancy canning stuff), put the tops on then put them back into the hot water bath. The directions on one recipe had said to "finger tighten" the tops because the air needs to be able to escape.  Seeing the bubbles of air escape just made me think... "isn't water going in then??"  I read something out of an actual canning book and it said in bold letters "tighten firmly", so I pulled them all out and re-tightened them hoping I hadn't ruined all my hard work.  
  After leaving them in the boiling water for about 5 minutes, I pulled them out and put them on a cooling rack.  In no time at all I heard the first little *pop!*, that sound that means it has successfully sealed itself! *pop!*.. *pop!*......*pop!*..........(I went and stood and watched the last jar with anticipation......)..... ... *pop!*   SUCCESS!! 
   This morning I had my OWN JELLY on my own biscuits! It was just like real jelly!

  I had enough berries left to try another batch and maybe experiment a bit this time.  I figure if it doesn't work out, all I lose is time and a packet of pectin.  I wanted to try a batch with a sugar substitute, maybe stevia or maple syrup. I decided to try using the stevia/sugar cane sugar substitute I have.  It seems that this batch isn't setting up into a nice firm jelly as much as the one with full sugar. 

  All in all, I am happy :)  I made Jelly!!  I think I am going to try drying some berries for tea and see how that goes!

http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/DietandNutrition/lycopene

http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/food-drink/wildcrafting-autumn-olive-berries-are-rich-in-nutrients-color-and-flavor/#.UGj2u5g0WSp

http://maggiemaefarm.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/autumn-olive-jelly/

http://wearemadeofdreamsandbones.blogspot.com/2006/09/autumn-olive-jam-saga.html

Wait, WHAT are you eating?

Well, acorns of course!  

Tonight is the last night of my "retirement" as I start a new job tomorrow and I decided to celebrate with a sweety-yum-yum of some sort.  The crisp atmosphere of Fall is in the air begging me to make a cozy treat for the evening.  Keeping in line with the Autumn theme of the treat, I decided to utilize some acorns I have had processed and ready to use for about two years.  

I have been trying to get away from enriched flour (and leaning towards gluten free all together) and so, started searching out a recipe that I could use that did NOT include wheat based flour.  This proved to be quite a task!  Just about every recipe that uses acorn flour ALSO uses another wheat based flour. I finally found one that made me perk up.  

Here is what I found:

Banana Acorn Cake (Flourless, Gluten Free)

• 1/4 cup acorn meal
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup unrefined coconut oil
• 1/3 cup maple syrup or honey
• 2/3 cup mashed bananas
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
• Mix dry ingredients together, then mix wet ingredients together. Pour into pre-oiled pan (a smallish bread pan works well) and cook for approx 20 minutes at 350.

You can see the original post here : http://bearmedicineherbals.com/banana-acorn-cake-flourless-gluten-free.html

 I had to keep it in the oven for probably more like 40 minutes in order for it to not seem like an oil bubbling chocolate sponge.  I had a piece of it while it was still hot and the center was molten coconut oil and somehow I could not decide if it was gross or yummy.  I decided to put it in the fridge to cool it down and then try again. 

  Vanilla almond milk in hand, I pulled the cooled "cake" out of the fridge for a second try. It was still pretty much an oil soaked sponge, but no longer apt to cause 3rd degree burns in my mouth. I sliced off a tiny sliver of the very flat, dense, oily loaf and popped it in my mouth. Again... absolute toss up, is this disgusting, or yummy?  

  I think it is the coconut oil. Or, perhaps it's the banana. Maybe that I used dark chocolate cocoa? Either way, it's not the acorn that I am having a problem with personally.  I decided to get a second opinion and presented it to my mother.  She decided it was worthy and I left the entire "cake" with her and her fork.

  Perhaps I will try tweaking this recipe and see if I can turn it into something more palatable, but that is not going to happen tonight.