Wild Flowers--March 23, 2014.

         

  It was a sunny weekend and we finished all of the housework on Saturday, as well as planting the potatoes and mowing the lawn, so Mark packed a picnic—tuna sandwiches on new honey wheat bread, bread and butter pickles, an apple, and some chocolate macaroons—and we headed out to find Spring at Finely.  The Mill Hill and Woodpecker loops cruise through Oak Savannah, Ash Swales, and some Doug Fir forest, as well as meadows and streams, so they are the perfect walk for wild flowers. No actual Elk, although their tracks were everywhere. Just wildflowers.

 Wild Flowers Blooming at Finely Wildlife Refuge—March 23, 2014

Daffodils—around the old house

English Daisy

Dandelions

Toothwort

Indian Plum

Chickweed

Heal All

Spring Beauty

Trillium—two types

Fairy Slippers

Fawn Lily

Yellow Wood Violet

Evergreen Yellow Violet

Oregon Grape

Buttercup

Mustard

Squash Gnocci with Arugula: yet another way to eat greens

Gnocci (I usually make a big batch over Winter Break and freeze most of them.)

2 cups of mashed squash

.5 t salt

.25 t pepper and nutmeg

3-3.5 c of flour

.5 c of Parmesan cheese, grated

Mix into a dough. Divide into two or three lumps and roll out into long coils about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut into pieces about an inch long. sometimes I roll them out a little more. Dust with flour and freeze. When ready to eat, drop gently into boiling water and cook for about four minutes, until they rise in the pan. Scoop out gently.

Chop a large bunch of arugula. Suatee in olive oil with a couple of cloves of chopped garlic. 

Grate some parmesan cheese while waiting.

Put gnocci in the bowl, then the arugula, then the cheese. Eat hot!