Tag Archives: Bjørnekjeks

50 and 20 year celebrations

To celebrate our good friends’ Jurgen Wegter and Ingvild Haga’s 50th birthdays together with Meg’s 50-year anniversary of arriving in Europe for the first time (in Southampton near where I lived at the time) as well as my 50 year anniversary of leaving school and a memorable holiday with 20-30 school friends in Newton Ferrers in Devon, we made a special gourmet dinner of green mac-cheese. It had masses of veg mixed in – the year’s first broad beans and swiss chard, chicory, common sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), Allium senescens leaves, shallots and garlic from last year, rehydrated winter chantarelles, golpar – ground seed of hogweed – Heracleum spp., together with ramsons salt, chili, sun dried tomatoes and mustard, all in a wholegrain spelt white sauce with wholegrain spelt pasta; it was  topped with alpine bistort bulbils). 
Not to be left out, the Extreme Salad Man contributed one of his Meditteranean diet inspired multispecies salads commemorating it is now almost 20 years since he put together a salad from home grown ingredients in Malvik comprising 537 ingredients. something the world hasn’t seen before or since (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=18997). The record was set on 24th August 2003. This time there were a mere 106 ingredients….sad to see, but he must be losing it….
Thanks to Jurgen for the salad pictures:

The Extreme Salad Man photographs his latest creation

Garden foraged perennial veggies: 28th June 2023

Tonight’s perennial vegetables from the garden, used in a stir-fry:
Top right and clockwise:
Sochan / Cherokee greens tops (Rudbeckia laciniata); Norsk: Kyss-meg-
over-gjerde (picture at the bottom)
Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) “Skomvær”; Norsk: engsyre (picture at the bottom)
Garlic shoots (Allium sativum) from a clump grown as a perennial; Norsk: hvitløk
Perennial chicory tops (Cichorium intybus)
Urtica platyphylla (a Japanese nettle species; later than Urtica dioica)
Cabbage thistle (Cirsium oleraceum); Norsk: kåltistel
From top and down
Sherpa onion (Allium wallichii); perfect time for harvesting; Norsk: Sherpaløk
Hogweed tops (Heracleum); Norsk: bjørnekjeks
Hosta fortunei var. albopicta f. aurea
Allium nutans; Norsk: Sibirsk nikkeløkSochan tops are excellent
A sorrel I collected at Skomvær, an island outermost in the Lofoten Islands; it is floriferous and has a compact growth form!



Cellar and Garden Greens: 6th April 2022

The greens that went into last night’s wholegrain spelt quiche are listed below the picture!
CELLAR: Dystaenia takesimana shoots; Forced hogweed (bjørnekjeks) shoots (Heracleum spp.); Forced Taraxacum (dandelion / løvetann); nederst til høyre: Witloof chicory (sikkori); øverst til høyre: swiss chard (mangold)
GARDEN: Various hybrid onions (Allium senescens x nutans) and Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde)


Forced March Perennial Greens

In order to lengthen the season for harvesting of perennial vegetables, I dig up roots of a selection in the autumn and plant them in garden soil in large buckets (which I have a surplus of through my Allium project, now moved to the botanical gardens). As I explain in the video, all of these can be stored outside exposed to the cold as they are very hardy (minimum about -20C here), but some get a head start by moving into my cold cellar where they start growing slowly in the dark. Welcome to my living room:

These were the forced veggies used one day last week, from top left and across – Heracleum sibiricum (hogweed / bjørnekjeks); Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower / storklokke); Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel);  Taraxacum officinale (dandelion / løvetann); (bottom row): Allium angulosum; Ficaria verna (lesser celandine / vårkål); Allium flavescens and Armoracia rusticana (horseradish / pepperrot); (centre right): wild buckwheat / vill bokhvete shoots – Fagopyrum tataricum)

Winter stir-fry

People are always asking me for recipes. I rarely follow recipes as my ingredients vary so much and I just use what I have available. However, I do follow a number of basic, mostly lacto-vegetarian recipes which I’ve evolved to my liking over the years. For instance, last night I used
a) Pea shoots (erteskudd), harvested about 25cm high (before they get too coarse to use; I don’t cut them right down to the soil as they will then resprout once or twice before giving up; to do this, they must be grown in a bucket or similar in deep soil); the peas were a mixture of about twenty home grown varieties, including several heirlooms such as Norwegian Jærert and Ringeriksert).
b) Swiss chard / mangold (it’s been too cold for this to regrow in the cellar where it’s planted in soil)
c) Chicory “Catalogna gigante di Chioggia” (sikkori) (this had resprouted in the cellar from the roots)  
d) Leeks / purre (also stored in soil in the cellar)
e) Yacon (sliced tubers)
f) Scorzonera / scorsonnerot (sliced tubers)
g) Oca (oka) (Oxalis tuberosa)
h) Garlic / hvitløk
i) Chili / chili
j) Bulb onions / kepaløk
k) golpar (ground seed of various Heracleum species;  bjørnekjeks / Tromsøpalme)
The roots are stir-fried first (in olive oil), then the onions are added and at the end the greens for 5-10 minutes, finally mixing in chili, salt and pepper. Served either over whole grain spelt pasta or mixed as a risotto (I use barley normally for a barlotto) with strong cheese or parmesan. 

The roots are stir-fried first (in olive oil), then the onions are added and at the end the greens for 5-10 minutes, finally mixing in chili, salt and pepper. Served either over whole grain spelt pasta or mixed as a risotto with strong cheese or parmesan. 

Siberian Hogweed en masse

When Heracleum sibiricum (siberian hiogweed / sibirbjørnekjeks) is in flower, you get a good impression of how much free food there is on the streets of Trondheim :)  Both young shoots, flower shoots and broccolis can be used as a vegetable. They are cooked and/or fermented. Russian beetroot soup, borscht, was originally a hogweed soup – often fermented first; The spring shoots are quite sweet.  The pictures show almost pure stands of hogweed on Lade, Trondheim.
More in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
BE CAREFUL HARVESTING AS YOU CAN BURN YOURSELF ON THE PLANT JUICES IN STRONG SUNLIGHT!

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