Japanese Knotweed Pie!

On Saturday morning I attended an invasive weed talk about the unfortunate prevalence of the non-native invasive plant variety known as Japanese Knotweed.  I learned a few important things, first that this stuff is really nasty and tough to get rid of, seriously seriously persistent (complete removal can take up to and often more than 5 years of concentrated efforts) and second, that it is edible, has a flavor comparable to rhubarb, and makes a mean piece of pie.  So naturally I had two immediate reactions: First, I should sign up for a site to try to do my part, and get rid of some of this stuff.  And then second, and perhaps more obvious, I should make a pie.

So today, first I walked the site that I "adopted" and learned that this time, I might have bitten off a bit more than I can chew.  This stuff is everywhere man, well maybe not everywhere, but where it is, there is a lot of it, and it's well established.  I walked the rail trail in Johnson today, from Parker and Stearn's just to the ball park, and in that short strip I found 4 large and established patches of Knotweed.  After that I checked down the bank at the back of the ball field, where the bank slopes down to the Lamoille River, and there I found a Knotweed forest the stretched almost the entire length of the park.  I don't have ARCGIS but I ripped off a little scrap of satellite photo from google maps (so thank you google, and please don't sue me!) and made myself a map of my little infestation, to help me keep track of what needs to be done (and maybe to recruit some volunteers...anyone wanna help?) so here's my map, complete with photo points, because I'm a dork, and I love this kind of thing and I haven't had the fortune of using this side of my brain in a long time!

(Click to enlarge)

Photo point 1: Patch of dried up stalks of last years knotweed (and plenty of hard to see new babies) on the rail trail facing Railroad Street and Parker and Stearn's

Photo point 2: Another patch on the side of the rail trail overlooking the park

Photo point 3: Patch of knotweed on the side of the rail trail abutting a private property.

Photo point 4: Patch covering both sides of the rail trail at the entrance to the park

And this ones not on the map, but its the patch from the last photo continuing along the drainage ditch on the other side of the road.

And finally, photo point 5: The bottom of the bank.

So there's that whole depressing story, hopefully I can do my part to cut these guys down to size.  Now on to more positive topics: Pie!  After my reconnaissance mission, I collected a few of these frightening looking stalks to bring home and clean and make a pie!  I used this fabulous recipe from Yankee magazine, which I of course edited slightly because I can't leave anything alone.  I used about 2 cups of peeled, chopped, knotweed, 2 to 2.5 cups of sliced strawberries, and one peeled, cored, and chopped pink lady apple (because it added extra volume, cut down on the strawberry costs, and allowed me to cut out a bit of the sugar) and here is a collection of photos of the resulting pie:

 

  Yummm!

And the hardest part of making this whole pie: not throwing the scraps in the compost (remember, these little buggers are invasive, and they'll invade your compost heap too!)  The pie was delicious, not as tart as rhubarb, a not unpleasing texture (I was concerned because the uncooked knotweed had it's "slimy" moments).  All in all I'd say it was a success!  

For more information about the problems associated with invasive weeds and best management practices for their removal, check out the Nature Conservancy's information page for Knotweed or their section on all of the Invasive Plants in Vermont.  And finally, a more comprehensive pdf of all of the different invasive plant species in Vermont is available here for free download.

Dancing, Greening, and Baking on Mother's Day Weekend

This was a big weekend for me for many reasons.  It's Mother's Day and I'm a pretty big fan of my mom, so thats always a big deal, but it was also Vermont Green Up Day on Saturday and the JSC Dance Show on Friday.  This means that Friday I attended a dance show with some friends and then went out dancing to various live shows around town after (a band called "The Thang"  embarrassed me into holding still at the Hub so I headed out to Moog's in Mo'ville to watch Chad Hollister play solo-definitely worth the trip-where I danced my butt off).  Then on Saturday I spent my morning picking up garbage along the Rail Trail where I walk my dogs, scaling a steep hillside up towards the road to pick up old skoal cans, McDonald's wrappers, and to try to steer clear of at least this years bags of deer guts (at which I was mostly successful).  Saturday night I first made a triple layer chocolate cheesecake/mousse dessert for both my friend Holly and my mom for mother's day and then in the later hours I made spaghetti dinner and garlic bread for dinner followed my preparing my mom's mother day breakfast after she went to bed.  This consisted of maple walnut cinnamon buns from a recipe I found in a magazine and adapted to my needs.  Then on Sunday I finished up the cinnamon buns and sliced up some fresh fruit for a surprise breakfast for my mom that was ready just as she came downstairs in the morning.  The bun recipe was from a magazine but I'll post the cheesecake concoction recipe below, but first: Pictures.

Sunrise outside my window, I love the silhouettes of trees in the foreground

Instead of pictures of garbage from Green Up Day, you get pictures of things that are already green, because they're really what it's all for anyway....

I am in love with baby leaves.

Sunshine on new leaves...nothings better

Fiddleheads!

Baby fern

Morning Dew

Mother's day Breakfast!

Cheesecake concoction: I made this cheesecake, then covered it with ganache and topped it with this chocolate mousse...wasn't crazy about the cheesecake recipe but all in all I think it turned out alright. 

Then I made chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  What a weekend!  Goodnight all!