Salad Daze! CROUTONS

It's feeling a lot like spring - meaning in part that my spawn is having allergy problems. No matter - MY mind is turning to spring greens.

And my spring greens get topped with croutons. A day without croutons is like a day without bacon ... rather literally, since I use bacon grease (and bacon when I have some) to make the croutons.

5 slices of thick cut bacon, in about a 1/3 inch dice
About a quart of stale bread, about 1/2 inch cubes
Salad seasonings of your choice - I usually use whatever Mrs Dash flavor sends me any given day
Extra bacon grease if you want.
Maybe some sesame seeds or poppy seeds, if you like.

Saute the bacon till crisp. Remove bacon and set aside. Stir bread cubes into bacon fat. Put greased bread cubes on baking tray, and bake at about 350 till golden brown and delicious. Toss salad seasonings on bread cubes. Throw reserved bacon in. Put in covered container. Put on salad in whatever amounts you like.

Enjoy!

Equinox

First day of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. I don't really do much for equinoxes and solstices. So I'm just going to serve roast leg of lamb, asparagus with a bit of hollandais sauce, new potatoes if I can find them - nah, I'll just cut up and roast big old potatoes. But for dessert, chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Not quite 'equal parts dark and light', but at least moderately symbolic.

Wild onion link

Here's a nice link for lot of info on wild onions. http://www.wildfoodforagers.org/wgonion1.htm
That said, the picture of the lone wild onion at the top of the first page doesn't look like MY wild onions. The one they have pictured has flat leaves, mine have round leaves. The site seems to be from Louisiana, so that might account for the difference. Let's face it - you know it's an onion or not once you break a leaf and smell the distinctive onion fragrence!

Hungry Time of Year

It's mid March. The weather has begun to moderate (aside from the odd snow storm), the snow is melted here in the DC area, I'm itching to start seeds. And itching in general, well, sneezing - some of the trees here are in bloom, spewing pollen.

Back in the day, this would have been the hungry time of the year. The stored food from last year would be running low, the new lambs would be just arriving so MAYBE there would be some fresh ewe's milk, and all that my yard is providing is wild onions.

Those wild onions are considered a nuisance weed by most folks. I consider them delicious, especially when made into scallion pancakes. There are two distinct types of scallion pancakes, Chinese and Korean. Today I'm going to share my recipe for the Chinese ones.

1 cup green onions (wild, scallions, whatever) chopped 1/2 inch long (I adore onions)
2 cups flour (less if you're using whole wheat)
1 cup water
sesame oil for brushing
Kosher salt
oil for pan frying

Mix the flour and water together to form a somewhat stiff dough. Divide dough into 12 lumps. Take first lump, roll into a thin circle. Brush with sesame oil, sprinkle with kosher salt, top with 1/12 of the chopped onions. Roll it up like a jelly roll. Then take it and make a tight snakelike coil, and roll it flat again. You will have flaky layers of dough and onions. Fry it in a little oil in a non-stick skillet, at a medium to medium high heat. Repeat with the rest of the dough and onions.

My family usually uses just soy sauce on these, but you could add ginger to soy sauce, and some chinese black vinegar, and maybe a bit of hot chili oil. Or maybe you'll want to use a sweet sauce, like a sweet and sour sauce.

Gotta Start Somewhere

The irony of it all - Celtic Reconstructionist Pagan starting a blog on St Patrick's day. At least no one will successfully dye a Guinness green!