{"id":5671,"date":"2015-06-29T20:45:51","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T02:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=5671"},"modified":"2015-10-24T17:51:34","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T23:51:34","slug":"from-spring-to-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=5671","title":{"rendered":"From Spring to Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

The past couple of weeks have been a\u00a0crazy time in the kitchen for me.\u00a0 I’ve started drying herbs for the winter, made some kimchi with\u00a0napa cabbage and garlic scape, cleaned and froze some strawberries for\u00a0later use, and I made some lavender sugar.\u00a0 The day before summer solstice, we\u00a0foraged for young, green,\u00a0black walnuts which\u00a0have been soaking for several days in water\u00a0that has\u00a0to be\u00a0changed twice\u00a0daily to get rid of the bitterness and\u00a0will eventually be turned into preserves.\u00a0 (Look for\u00a0my article about it in the\u00a0July issue of Voice<\/a>.)\u00a0 In addition, I\u00a0finally bought an ice cream maker attachment for my stand mixer.\u00a0 My fear that it would make me into an ice cream eating machine was\u00a0abated by the fact that it actually took at least a day to make a small batch.<\/p>\n

Foraged Berries & Wildflowers<\/em><\/p>\n

\"wildberriesandwildflowers\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A wonderful thing to do in early summer is to\u00a0forage for wild berries.\u00a0 I went\u00a0to check on my favorite rambling area, the Merry Christmas Mine Hill<\/a> in Mineral Point.\u00a0 I was delighted to see a Cottontail rabbit on the path two seconds before it disappeared into a thick patch of clover and milkweed.\u00a0 The first batch of blackcaps and red raspberries were ready to be picked along with some black and white mulberries.\u00a0 White mulberries was a new discovery for me last year.\u00a0 They are pretty delicate and\u00a0slightly sweet,\u00a0sort of like\u00a0the white part of a strawberry without any hint of tartness.\u00a0 I also couldn’t help but pick a bouquet of wildflowers which consisted of yarrow, asters, black-eyed Susan, and a\u00a0striking lily type called spiderwort (purple with three petals and six stamen).\u00a0 I was pretty pleased that I did not get any mosquito bites nor wounds from the berry thorns.\u00a0 Like last year, I decided to make some syrup with the berries to use in cocktails for the season.<\/p>\n

Before cooking it with sugar, I soaked the berries in cold water for a least half an hour.\u00a0 It is a good way to coax the little bugs out of hiding and get rid of debris.\u00a0 Luckily, we have gotten so many rainstorms that it has been agitating the bugs off of the fruits.\u00a0 I added some lavender and lemon to it to give it a little kick of tartness and an herby floral hit.\u00a0 I love mixing herbs and fruits together.\u00a0 Some combinations that I’m looking forward to testing are tarragon-strawberry and raspberry-rose.\u00a0 Last year, raspberry-thyme was well received by my friends but I’m always looking to experiment.\u00a0 Keith sometimes gets very sad when I make something really delicious because more often than not, I will never make it the same way again.\u00a0 It makes for an exciting life, right?<\/p>\n

Wild Berries Infused with Lavender<\/em><\/p>\n

\"syrupinprocess\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Below was our first summer cocktail.\u00a0 My favorite kind of drink is usually gin based (made with Death’s Door Gin<\/a> to be exact).\u00a0 I know it looks a little crazy but I have been inspired by\u00a0Lottie Muir’s book called Wild Cocktails<\/a>\u00a0that I got as a birthday present from some very dear friends.\u00a0 It has gin, wild berry syrup, sparkling water and decorated with red clover, yarrow, lavender, chamomile, raspberries, and white mulberries.\u00a0Cheers!<\/p>\n

The “Love is Love”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"wildberrygincocktail\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a bonus sunset for you.\u00a0 If you want to see another bonus shot, keep scrolling down.<\/p>\n

Misty Sunset<\/em><\/p>\n

\"mistysunset\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is Missy the goat with her baby called Edelweiss.\u00a0 One of the perks of living in a rural area and being a teacher is getting invited by students to see their animals.\u00a0 How could I resist when\u00a0a kid\u00a0says “Miss Leslie, please come over to my house for piano lessons\u00a0so\u00a0you can meet our baby goat.\u00a0 We also have pot bellied pigs and a baby donkey!”<\/p>\n

Ciao!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"momandbabygoat\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past couple of weeks have been a\u00a0crazy time in the kitchen for me.\u00a0 I’ve started drying herbs for the winter, made some kimchi with\u00a0napa cabbage and garlic scape, cleaned and froze some strawberries for\u00a0later use, and I made some lavender sugar.\u00a0 The day before summer solstice, we\u00a0foraged for young, green,\u00a0black walnuts which\u00a0have been soaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,38],"tags":[705,381,114,707,704,706],"class_list":["post-5671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-driftless-area-towns","category-drinks","tag-black-caps","tag-foraging","tag-goats","tag-sunset","tag-wild-berries","tag-wildflowers","has-featured-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5671"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5756,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions\/5756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}