Ramps + Pizza

Harvest Pizzeria had ramps* on tonight's special! It was delicious! The special featured wild ramps from Ohio and West Virginia, truffled mushrooms from Athens County, fennel sausage, Taleggio cheese and local honey. We enjoyed it on top of a gluten-free crust - it was divine! 

To round out the meal, I enjoyed a very gingery Moscow Mule. Read my full review of Harvest Pizzeria, written after my first visit, here!

Spring at Battelle Darby Creek

Flowers. Frogs. Turtles.

Winter Wellness In A Jar Class at City Folk's Farm Shop

Last week I took a class at City Folk's Farm Shop in Clintonville. City Folk's Farm Shop is a store which sells tools and materials for growing and making your own food and other products. City Folk's also offers urban homesteading classes year round to teach Central Ohioans how to live off the land.

Sharon Woods

Schrock Lake

When Kenneth and I moved to Columbus in the summer of 2010, we were eager to discover everything the city has to offer - especially its parks!  The Columbus Metro Parks include seventeen different parks (with a new park, Rocky Fork, currently being developed), all with plenty of hiking trails and interesting habitats.  Kenneth set a goal for us, to visit all of the Metro Parks before he graduates from veterinary school in the spring of 2014.  We visited several parks shortly after our move, some of them for the first time during the Metro Parks extremely popular Winter Hike series (which we plan to participate in again this winter!).

Sharon Woods, however, was the last park we needed to visit.  In early September we finally made it happen!  It took three years, but we have now visited all of the Columbus Metro Parks at least once.  I really enjoyed our hike at Sharon Woods, I think we'll be back soon!

Ohio Pawpaw Festival - Lake Snowden

The Ohio Pawpaw Festival is a three day celebration of all things pawpaw!  This year was the 15th year for the annual south-eastern Ohio festival.  I went to my first pawpaw festival in 2007 when I was a student at Ohio University and have made it back for several festivals in between that first year and the 2013 festival.  I've written a little bit about the pawpaw on my blog before (click here, here and here for some of my pawpaw photography).

The pawpaw is a tree native to Ohio with a very unique fruit (also the largest fruit native to the U.S.)!  The fruit, which is soft like a custard (or pudding) tastes like a combination of banana, mango and vanilla.  This fruit is unique and unfamiliar to Americans today because the pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba) belongs to the tropical plant family Annonaceae, the majority of the plants in this family are found in the tropics, like soursop, custard-apple and cherimoya.  The fruit is also highly perishable and more likely to be found on a hike in the woods than at your local grocery store (though you can find it some farmers' markets!)  

Apples, Pawpaws & Persimmons!

I don't know what my favorite variety of apple is...

Hayden Falls Park

Hayden Falls Park is a small park (about two acres) with a gorgeous waterfall and boardwalk path.  I first learned about Hayden Falls from some friends who moved to an apartment complex near the falls about a year or so ago.  They raved about how beautiful the falls are and how easy it is to get to them, the park is located just off of Hayden Run Road where it crosses the Scioto River.  Kenneth and I have driven past the parking lot for the falls several times, but had never made time to stop.

Pawpaws!

Saw these beauties and many others today at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Albany, Ohio!  What's a pawpaw?  Pawpaws are Ohio's state native fruit and the largest fruit native to North America.  Kenneth and I spotted pawpaw at Battelle Darby Creek, Sharon Woods and even at the Columbus Zoo - they grow all over Ohio!  The fruit is edible (but not the seeds!) and tastes like a combination of banana, mango and vanilla.  The texture is soft, like custard.  I will be posting a review of the 15th annual Pawpaw Festival very soon!

While you wait, check out the Ohio Pawpaw Festival website (or get yourself to Albany, the festival continues tomorrow!) and this NPR story The Pawpaw: Foraging For America's Forgotten Fruit by Allison Aubrey (a segment of the story is about the Ohio Pawpaw Fest!).  Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for pawpaws in the Capital City - they grow in patches in wooded areas, the fruit is ripe when it falls from the tree (you can give a tree a gentle shake to knock high hanging fruit to the ground).  Enjoy!

Gluten-Free Chokeberry-Lime Bread

This Chokeberry-Lime Bread, like some of my other recipes lately, is still being tweaked (mainly, it needs more lime, maybe even a lime glaze!).  It was adapted from the Blueberry-Oat Quick Bread recipe on The Kitchn.  I will post the recipe here when its in better shape!

While you wait, check out my Chokeberry Oatmeal Bars recipe!  

Chokeberries kind of taste like blueberries, but can't be eaten raw, hence the name chokeberry!  My mom, sister and I harvested the chokeberries pictured below from my parents' yard two weeks ago.  I now have three gallon sized bags of these berries in my freezer (after being frozen and/or cooked, the berries lose their astringency and become palatable)!  The chokeberry bushes were planted as ornamentals when my parents landscaped their yard several years ago; we realized that the berries are edible after they were planted.  It was a delicious discovery!  

Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens

Chadwick Arboretum is an urban arboretum that is nearly in Kenneth and I's backyard!  Ever since we moved to Columbus three years ago, I've been meaning to visit Chadwick.  Because it's so close, it's easy to push off visiting until later, it's not like it's going anywhere, right?  Months can easily turn into years as we get busy or develop a routine.  Unfortunately I'm guilty of this with lots of other cool places in Columbus.  Part of my goal with this blog is to finally make it to some of these awesome places in Columbus that we've put off visiting because they're not going anywhere.

We made time to visit Chadwick after a wonderful three-year wedding anniversary celebration dinner at Cap City Fine Diner and Bar last month.  Chadwick Arboretum is 62 acres, but is broken up into four separate sections on the Ohio State University campus: the Learning Gardens, the Lane Avenue Gardens, the Bloch Cancer Survivors Plaza and Arboretum North.  We visited the Lane Avenue Gardens.  It was a surprisingly chilly evening for August and the setting sun cast long shadows as we walked through the gardens.  I took a lot of photos, several of them are posted below. 

Pretty Persimmon 2

See 'Pretty Persimmon 1' here.

Inniswood Metro Gardens

Inniswood is one of my favorite Columbus Metro Parks!  This 123 acre metro park includes themed gardens and collections (roses, hostas, daylilies, herbs, daffodils and a rock garden) and three miles of trail, some of which pass over streams and go through wooded areas.  It's a very peaceful park, perfect for couples and families!

PB + Chokecherry Jam

My wonderful sister, Brittney, bought us some chokecherry jam at a farmers' market when she and her boyfriend, Cam, were in Vermont few weeks ago!  Chokecherry is a small tree which is native to the northern parts of North America and has an edible berry.  The jam is really good! 

Gluten-Free Black Magic Muffins + Recipe

This is the first recipe I've made with the elderberries I got last week!  The dark purple elderberries give the muffins a slight crunch and compliment the chocolate nicely.  The muffins are 'black magic' muffins because the elderberry shrub is believed to have magical properties in both ancient and modern times (Harry Potter fans may remember the powerful Elder Wand, which was made from an elderberry shrub).

If you plan to cook with elderberries, be sure that you have berries (or flowers, which are also edible) from the Common Elderberry (Sambucus nigra).  The berries should not be consumed raw, but must be cooked first.  For further reading on elderberries (which grow well here in Ohio), I recommend the following resources:

USDA Plant Guide - Common Elderberry
Common Elderberry from "Wildman" Steve Brill
Elderberries: Red, White and Blue from Eat the Weeds

And here is the recipe!  You could use another black berry in place of the elderberries - they'll still be tasty, they just won't be magic!

Black Magic Muffins (Gluten-Free)
Makes 12 muffins 

Ingredients: 
¾ cup sweet sorghum flour* 
¾ cup brown rice flour* 
½ cup tapioca flour* 
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda 
½ teaspoon salt 
2 tablespoons cocoa powder 
⅔ cup brown sugar 
¾ teaspoon espresso powder 
1 teaspoon xanthan gum** 
1 large egg 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
½ stick melted butter 
1 cup milk 
1 ½ cup fresh elderberries 
½ cup dark chocolate chips 

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flours, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, brown sugar, espresso powder, xanthan gum in a bowl and mix until combined. Stir in the egg, vanilla, melted butter and milk. Add elderberries and chocolate. Stir well and spoon batter into muffin liners. Bake for approximately 20 to 22 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the muffins comes out clean. Cool for five minutes in the muffin pan, then remove.

*Use 2 cups regular all purpose wheat flour, if not baking gluten-free.
**Omit if not baking gluten-free.

Mulberries & Memories

I picked mulberries today at work to freeze and use to make mulberry muffins in Culinary Creations camp next week.  We're going to modify this recipe for Ginger Mulberry Muffins from A Spicy Perspective and read If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff.

Serviceberries

I took this picture of berries ripening on a serviceberry tree on my way into the building this morning at work.  Serviceberry (which is also known by many other names, some of them including: shadbush, juneberry, saskatoon and sugarplum), is a native, small tree with edible fruit.  The berries taste a lot like blueberries!

Pretty Persimmon

I took this photo at work today, it's an American Persimmon flower!  This tree grows in the parking lot at the Conservatory and every year during late fall, the tree graces us with tons of little orange fruit.  These edible fruits are about the size of a ping pong ball and are best enjoyed when soft and mushy.  I have tried persimmon in the past, but it was too astringent for me.  Perhaps I will give one a try again this fall!

Gluten-Free Chokeberry Oatmeal Bars + Recipe

Today I made Chokeberry Oatmeal Bars for a Memorial Day cookout.  These bar cookies are adapted from the Quaker Oatmeal Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe.  Substitutions for those who use regular wheat flour are included!  If you don't have access to chokeberries (which are really cool and easy to grow!) you can use blueberries instead.  

Eastern Redbud Blossoms

It seems like all of the flowers in Franklin Park were in bloom today!  I took a bunch of photos this afternoon and decided to post this one of Eastern Redbud flowers.  A redbud tree in bloom is one of my favorite signs of spring!  The Eastern Redbud tree is small in size and has lovely heart shaped leaves.