(DF) FOOD FROM HOME: Homegrown and wild harvested

With grocery prices (and prices of everything else) soaring, it is sometimes hard to decide what to cut back on to stay within budget.  However, on the farm, it is possible to avoid having to cut so many corners on food. 

As an example, last night I had a tasty, nutritious and satisfying meal, with very little outlay of cash.  By very little, I mean almost none.  All of the main ingredients were either from the garden or wild harvested on the property.  The only exceptions were a little butter, a couple of teaspoons of natural sugar, a dash of salt and a very small amount of flour.

The green beans were fresh picked from the garden, as was the garlic which was cooked with them, while they were spiced with stone mint harvested in the woods (I use it like oregano).  The mushrooms (chanterelles) were also harvested in the woods on the property.  The eggs and milk used in the batter were from my own chickens and goat.  The blackberries were picked in the pasture, and the milk they were served with was, once again, from my goat.

A little salt in the mushroom batter and beans, some flour in the mushroom batter, the butter the mushrooms were sauteed in and a bit of sugar for the berries, were the only ingredients that did not originate here on the farm.  Potentially, in the future, even those ingredients will be produced here (or a substitute for them) with the exception of salt.  Yet another goal in the journey toward self-sufficiency.

For now, this is pretty close to being a completely homegrown meal.  Did I also mention that it was delicious?  It was absolutely delightful, and made much sweeter by the fact that it was grown here on the farm.  The only thing missing was meat.  We haven't gotten to the point of major meat production yet, but it is cool and rainy today and the local wildlife better watch out.

As a caution, I must warn you to be careful when picking any wild edible.  While there are many plants and mushrooms that are edible and tasty, there are, of course, some that can be quite deadly.  Be sure you know what you are picking, and if there is even the slightest doubt, don't eat it.  There are no known antidote for the toxins in some of the bad ones, so be extremely careful.