Pineapple Weed Vs. Black Medic

 May and June are the best time of year to gather Pineapple Weed buds. Pineapple Weed has petal-less flowers that make really calming tea, in fact Pineapple Weed is closely related to Camomile. Pineapple Weed loves poor quality soil like driveways and empty lots. I love the smell of the buds. I like to squeeze a bud between my fingers and sniff the fruity aroma. It smells kinda like....... pineapple!

 Another yellow bud that is about the same size that grows in the same places is Black Medic aka Yellow Trefoil.

Can you see the difference? Above is Black Medic. Below is Pineapple Weed.

And here they are growing side by side:

Black Medic is a legume and has clover type leaves.

Pineapple Weed has feathery leaves.

The buds of Pineapple Weed mature into seeds. The seeds fall off of the flower head leaving cone shaped spires.

And hopefully they fall on some poor quality soil and grow a bunch more Pineapple Weed next year!

Nanking Cherry | Wild Edible

 

I have learned a new wild edible. This is the Nanking Cherry. They are succulent tart little cherries grown on a shrub.

Do you remember this flower that bloomed in March that I saw during my morning walks but didn't know what kind of flowers is was?

Now on my morning walks I see these cherries. I was able to look up the shrub now that it has leaves and berries and make a sure identification.

Nanking Cherries are a drought resistant shrub. I need to get a bunch of these planted in my yard. I think they would make a great hedge. The cherries are tart, delicious, and prolific. All along each branch there are cherries up and down. They would make good pies and jam I think. The trouble would be getting the pits out. They have a miniature cherry pit in each fruit. 

 For further reading check out this page:

https://www.foragecolorado.com/post/nanking-cherry-prunus-tomentosa-foraging-identification

Nutmeg Documentary

 

I really enjoyed this documentary about nutmeg. I learned many things about the tree and fruit but also about the history of European trade and conquest in the Spice Islands.

The second time that watched this documentary my children joined me and I considered it part of homeschooling (even though we watched it on the weekend.) I even drew these coloring pages and made copies for my children to color.

Nutmeg is native to the Banda Islands, which was a closely guarded secret by spice traders for many many years. When the European companies and governments finally figured out where nutmeg was coming from each power tried securing a monopoly on nutmeg. In the end England ceded their Banda Island to Holland as a trade for what Holland called New Amsterdam in America. New Amsterdam's name was changed and today we know it as Manhattan Island of New York!

If you would like to print my coloring pages you should be able to use the links below to access my scanned drawings and print them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11gy7ypraOyYkr99KzdZ7S6RfD9orzyu0/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11WghLsYNdG-ul3Si-kqs--vmNHripS5P/view?usp=drivesdk

My son had this idea for a funny cartoon depicting the British leaving the Banda Islands to the Dutch saying, "Enjoy your monopoly on nutmeg!" all the while having hundreds of nutmeg seedlings to take and grow elsewhere.

I thought it was such a good idea so I drew it like this:

Huffman Pineapple Upsidedown Cake

 

This is my mom's pineapple upsidedown cake recipe. I am still not able to make pineapple upsidedown cake as well as my mother. Her cakes are the best. The caramel crust on her pineapple upsidedown cakes are so crisp and praline-like. She has made this cake probably a hundred times. When she melts the butter and sugar in the skillet she knows by experience how long to cook the mixture. She doesn't time it. She doesn't measure the temperature. So she can't tell me exactly how to replicate what she does. One of these days I am going to practice pineapple upsidedown cakes until I get it perfect like she does. Now I will have the recipe to do it right.

Melissa Huffman's Perfect Pineapple Upsidedown Cake 

1 stick of butter

1 3/4 cup of brown sugar

1 can pineapple rings 

1 jar of maraschino cherries

1 box plus 1/2 cup more from a second box of yellow butter recipe cake mix

3 eggs

1/3 cup oil

1 1/4 cup pineapple juice

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Mix the cake mix with eggs and add oil and pineapple juice 

Melt butter in iron skillet and add brown sugar and spread evenly and turn off. Put pineapple rings and cherries in place. Pour cake batter over. 

Bake for 45 minutes or until tests clean. Turn out onto platter immediately.

In case you don't have box cake mix, I used the following and the cake part of the pineapple upsidedown cake was good.

Yellow Cake from Scratch 

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups white sugar

½ cup oil + 2 TBS. butter

3 eggs

1 1/4 cup pineapple juice (or how ever much pineapple juice you have plus enough sour cream to make 1 1/4 cups)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract