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Autumn olive as Fruit leather...how many of you do this?
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Posted by missa z5MA (standswwolves1@aol.com) on Mon, Sep 8, 08 at 12:35
Hi there!
For the last few years i have been making autumn olive fruit leather. Ive read about how invasive this species is and i wanted to do something to help. I am a member of a non profit organization canned the Opacum Land Trust and i attended sessions and one of them was a man..a scientist,( russ cohen) who taught at universities and such about wild plant and edibles. he brought in a sample of autumn olive fruit leather...it was delicious! i was hooked and had to find out how to make it. I later found out that russ cohen had a book out about it. A cook book none the less! With tips on foraging MY native plants here in MA! I had to have the book! And there i found the recipie for making autumn oliVe fruit leather and cat tail pollen muffins amongst other things! Some of his palate items were a bit more than ide be willing to try but they are quite interesting too! These muffins were fun to make with younger children!
So how many of you have had autumn olive fruit leather? Its almost time to pick the fruit out here and i cannot wait! mmmmmm! Whats your favorite wild edible and what do you make with it?
Have a great day! Melissa |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Autumn olive as Fruit leather...how many of you do this?
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hi melissa, the leathers are drying now. a friend and i have harvested berries about 4 times this month. they get sweeter and sweeter! we run them thru a squeezo. in the 1st run thru, the juice runs right past the pulp. this is where all the bitterness lies, and it's discarded after it sits in a pitcher so the finest pulp can settle out and be used. the seeds are run thru a 2nd time for a really pureed pulp. this i eat raw, add to yogurt, or freeze. the 1st pulp has lots of pooled juice that i drink raw,freeze, or add back to the pulp and cook up with some sugar for leathers. we're experimenting with all combos. the seeds are edible but don't clean up well. even cooked and dried, they get fibrous after chewing. don't know what to do with them. i know they are invasive but i'd rather get rid of poison ivy and bittersweet. the usda has studied autumn olive as a possible crop- they are loaded with lycopene.
another discovery for me this year was purslane. i let it become a living mulch under the tomatos and peppers. good raw in salads or cooked as a green (-but not as delicious as those sweet potato leaves !!). i dried some and what i read is true-purslane is a thickener, in soup and spaghetti sauce. eat free ! |
RE: Autumn olive as Fruit leather...how many of you do this?
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eSearching to see if leather can be made of the Russian olive as well...
One author gave a nice descriptive account of the Russian variety, and changed topics in mid paragraph! So I'm still confuddled.
Is Russian olive edible or useful in any form? Leather? Oils? |
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