55 Foods from the Farm:
Week 3
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
This week’s 55 Foods concoction comes from my good friend, Ayla, a goddess of wild edibles. This delicious sauce combines rhubarb [#6] and spruce tips [#7] for a great topping that can be served on pork chops [#8] or even ice cream. This was a great way to end a stressful week (sorry we missed a week of 55 foods there...we’re getting back on track now!)
What are spruce tips??? They are the tender little needles from a spruce tree that pop out of their papery coating in early spring. I made the mistake of trying one directly from the tree, but it tasted like, well, spruce. On their own they are too bitter to enjoy fresh, but boiled down with rhubarb and a few other secret ingredients, they make a surprisingly delicious sweet sauce. We spooned it onto some of the last of our pork chops from the Tamworth pigs we raised last year. We couldn’t get enough of the sweet sauce at dinner so we topped our ice cream with it for dessert.
The Willow Springs Market is in the beautiful countryside of Lappe, just north of Thunder Bay and is open Fridays from 3-7 pm starting June 27.
Be sure to “Like” the Willow Springs Creative Centre facebook page to find out when the first batch of rhubarb spruce-tip sauce is ready!
It is probably too late now to gather your own spruce tips, but don’t fret! This delicious sauce will be available for sale at the Willow Springs’ Market this summer.