Baked Acorn Squash

4 medium-sized acorn squash

8 tablespoon butter or margarine

16 teaspoon honey

1 fresh ground pepper to

1 season

Slice the squash in half crosswise and scoop out the pulp and seeds. Trim the bottoms, if necessary,
so that the quash will stand hollow side up. Place 2 teaspoons honey in the hollow of each squash,
then add 1 tablespoon butter or margarine to each and a twist or two of fresh ground pepper. Place
squash in a large, shallow baking pan and bake, uncovered, in a moderate oven, 350 degrees, for
about 2 1/2 hours or until the squash are tender.

Baked Pumpkin

1 small pumpkin, peeled and cut into cubes

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon

Place pumpkin cubes in a baking dish and sprinkle with sugar and salt. Cover pan with foil and bake
in 325-degree oven until soft. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Buttered Poke Sprouts

Gather, wash, and trim 12 to 16 tender young poke sprouts. Place in a large kettle, cover with boiling
water, and boil for 10 minutes. Pour this cooking water off and discard. Cover the sprouts again with
fresh water, add 1 tablespoon wood ashes* and 2 cloves wild garlic, some bacon fat (if desired).
Simmer slowly. Serve steaming hot, dressed with nut butter or nut oil and cider vinegar to taste.

Poke is a plant that is best collected (for cooking) when the new plants begin to unfold their earliest
leaves. Later, as the plant matures, the leaves, berries, seeds, and taproot have toxic properties and
can become poisonous. The ripe berries are the source of a purplish-blue dye. There is more
information on "poke" in online cookbook, Native Way. Yield: 6 servings

Cherokee Bean Balls

2 cups Brown beans

4 cups Cornmeal

1/2 cup Flour

1 teaspoon Soda

Boil beans in plain water until tender. Put cornmeal, flour and soda in large mixing bowl. Mix well.
Add boiling beans and some of the juice to the cornmeal mixture to form a stiff dough. Roll in balls
and drop in pot of boiling hot water. Let cook for 30 minutes at slow boil. Yield: 6 servings

Creamed Dandelion Greens

young dandelion leaves, about 1 lb.

1/2 t. salt

2 T. butter

2 T. flour

1 c. milk

salt and pepper to taste

Wash leave and put in large pan. Add about a quart of water and the salt and bring to a boil. Turn
down heat and simmer 15 min. Drain, and chop fine. Melt butter in pan; add flour to make a smooth
paste. Add milk, salt and pepper and cook until creamy. Mix in greens and serve.

Morels And Ramps

10 oz. fresh morels or other mushrooms of choice

1 bunch small ramps (about 30)

3 T. unsalted butter

1 sprig fresh thyme

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp. minced flat-leaf parsley.

Place morels in a bowl of water and soak 15 min. Drain morels and cut off stems. Rinse ramps very
well, cut off roots, and peel off outer layer of skin. Place 1 tb butter in a medium skillet over low heat,

add morels, and cook 2 min. Add thyme and cook a few more min, until morels have softened and
given up their liquid. Remove thyme; season, and set aside. In another skillet, melt 1 T. butter over
med-low heat. Add the ramps and 1 T. water, cover and cook 4 min longer, until tender. Season.

Add morels and their liquid to ramps, increase heat to med-high, saute briefly, and add another T. of
butter. Check seasonings, add parsley and serve. Yield: 4 servings

Spinach-Wild Rice

4 cups cooked wild rice

2 lbs washed fresh spinach

4 eggs

2 big bunches green onions

1 tsp salt

1 Cup sunflower seeds

1/2 tsp pepper

4 Tbs chopped parseley

1/2 lb cheese grated fine

2 Tbs sesame seeds

4 Tbs butter

Beat 4 eggs with salt, pepper, stir into rice. Stir in cheese and parsley. Tear stems .from spinach and
chop these tough stems very fine. Fry them lightly with 2 big bunches of green onions chopped fine
(including most of the green part). Tear up or chop coarsely the spinach leaves and stir them into the
frying pan to wilt a little. Then stir it all into the rice mix. Stir in some sunflower seeds. Taste for
seasoning. Pack into 1 or 2 greased heavy casseroles. Top with toasted sesame seeds and 2 Tbsp
melted butter sprinkled around on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, uncovered. Goes well with
sweet-baked squash, pumpkin or candied sweet potatoes. Yield: 10

Steamed Fiddleheads With Ramps

1 lb. fiddleheads cleaned

1/2 C plain yogurt

1/2 C mayonnaise or sour cream

1 tbl fresh lemon juice, or to taste

3 tsp mustard such as Dijon-style

3 tbl finely chopped Ramps

Steam the fiddleheads over boiling water for 5 minutes,or until they are crisp-tender. Drain, then chill
in a bowl of ice and cold water to stop the cooking. When they have cooled transfer to colander to
drain. In a small bowl whisk together the yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard, wild leek greens.
Add salt and pepper to taste, whisking until the sauce is smooth. Serve the fiddleheads topped with
the sauce. Yield: 4-6 servings

Timpsula: Prairie Turnip

Timpsula

Prairie Turnip

Psoralea esculenta

prairie wild turnip

Indian breadroot

Timpsula or Tinpsila is the secret ingredient to Woodenknife Native American fry bread Timpsula:
Prairie Turnip Psoralea esculenta and also known as the prairie wild turnip, Indian breadroot, and
several other names is one of the ingredients used in one of the ingredients used in our Fry Bread
Mix. The Prairie Turnip was probably the most important wild food gathered by Indians who lived
on the prairies. In 1805 a Lewis and Clark expedition observed plains Indians collecting, peeling, and
frying prairie turnips. The Lakota women told their children, who helped gather wild foods, that
prairie turnips point to each other. When the children noted which way the branches were pointing,
they were sent in that direction to find the next plant. This saved the mothers from searching for
plants, kept the children happily busy, and made a game of their work. Prairie turnips were so
important, they influenced selection of hunting grounds. Women were the gatherers of prairie
turnips and their work was considered of great importance to the tribe. IN 1804, LEWIS AND CLARK
called it the "white apple" and their French boatmen called it pomme blanche. In 1837, while crossing
the James River basin, Captain John Fremont refers to it as pommes des terres, or the ground apple. I
learned it as Indian breadroot, but it's most commonly called prairie turnip. The Lakota call it
timpsula. Timpsula produces a spindle-shaped tuber about four inches below the ground. This
tuber, although nutritionally similar to a potato, differs in taste and texture due to different types of
sugars and starches. The white edible portion is exposed by removing a coarse brown husk. If the
thin portion of the root is left attached, the tubers can be woven together the tubers can be stored
indefinitely. Timpsula has been a source of food and commerce on the Great Plains for centuries. The
tuber can be eaten raw, cut into chunks and boiled in stews, or ground into a fine flour. The flour can
then be used to thicken soups, or made into a porridge flavored with wild berries. Mixed with berries,

water and some tallow, the flour can be made into cakes, which when dried, make a durable and
nutritious trail food. Historically, tinpsila occurred in prairies throughout the Great Plains from
Saskatchewan to north Texas. In the Dakotas it is still relatively common in prairie tracts that have
not been plowed or grazed too heavily. It flowers in May and June and ripens in June and July. It's
important to know when the plant ripens because, collected too early the roots are limp and depleted
from initiating spring growth; look too late, and the above-ground plant will be gone because it
breaks loose at ground level and blows across the prairie like a tumbleweed spreading its seeds. It is
no accident that, in Lakota, the month of June is called tinpsila itkahca wi, meaning the moon when
breadroot is ripe Think of it as food it with a passion. The wandering Sioux traded it to the Arikara for

corn. Tinpsila even enters the renown legend of John Colter's escape from the Blackfeet, because it
supposedly became his survival food. It was undoubtedly eaten by Hugh Glass on his famous crawl
across the South Dakota plains after being mauled by a grizzly in 1823. Harvey Dunn's memorable
painting "The Prairie Is My Garden" depicts a pioneer woman and her children collecting flowers
from nature's garden. When you eat fry bread made from timpsula, you are truly eating from our
prairie garden. http://www.woodenknife.com

Wild Potatoes

Here are three potato-like wild plants for your enjoyment and survival.

a. Wild Potato (Solanum fendleri/jamesii)

Identification: Perennial Plants with rootstalks bearing globe shaped tubers similar to garden
potatoes. Leaves have 5-9 divisions. Flowers are white or purple. Habitat: Found in open pine forest
of the mountains. Season: Summer. Uses: Prepare like potatoes.

b. Arrowhead (Sagitarria latifolia)

Identification: Aquatic or marsh perennial herbs with arrow shaped leaves. The white flowers are in
whorls of three. While starchy tubers are at the end of the rootstocks. Habitat: In ponds or very wet
ground. Season: Fall into early spring. Ues: The tubers are roasted or boiled (some say they are
superior to potatoes). Indian women would go into the pond (in November) as far as neck-deep

and with their bare feet poke around in the mud until they loosened the tubers. They would float to
the top and were collected. They were happy when they were lucky enough to find a muskrat's cache
of the delicious tubers. You may see a color photo of the arrowhead (also known as the "wappato")

at <http://www.freeoutdoors.com/prods/plant_cards/index.html>

c. Indian Potato (Oregenia linearifolia)

Identification: Small non-hairy perennial plants with fleshy roots. Slender leaves narrowly divided.
White flowers in compound umbels. Habitat: Found on open mountain slopes and valleys. Season:
All year. Uses: Can be eaten raw or prepared like potatoes. Thse descriptions are taken from Miriam
Kramer's Manual to Dining on the Wilds. This book along with Wild Plants to Eat accompany the
Dining on the Wilds Video set. Find out more about these books and videos on edible wild plants at:

<http://www.galaxymall.com/outdoors/wilderness/moreinfo.html>

Wild potato-vine Ipomoea pandurata

Subject: Re: Ipomoea pandurata http://www.biosurveyou.edu/okwild/pota.html Image of the bloom

http://newcrop.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/faminefoods/ff_home.html Famine Foods web site but no
details on the uses are given http://ext.agn.uiuc.edu/extension/weeds/BGMORN.htm has a lot of

information on the discretion and control From:
http://www.central.edu/biology/botany/wild/plantsW.html HABITAT: Dry soil, fields, roadsides and
fence rows. USES: The roots can be baked or boiled and taste similar to slightly bitter sweet
potatoes. Some roots are more bitter than others and should be boiled in several changes of water to
help lessen the bitterness. CAUTION: The roots are a purgative so they should only be eaten after

boiled.