I Love Free Food

[Tiny Termite]

I have been Sweet Chestnut Foraging today and collected around 300, but that's the easy peasy bit. My Son looked on and thought Mum's knife needed a sharpen when he caught me trying to score the peel of the chestnut with great difficulty, which was great until I sliced my middle finger open and everything turned bloody. So after binding my bloody finger I popped them into the oven where they all opened up like clams. Clams are very easy to remove from there shells, Sweet chestnuts are very difficult and time consuming, so after around 50 I have given up, but I will continue again tomorrow.

 

[sissy]

I love chestnuts but they are so expensive here .As a child in PA they were easy to find and roast outside with all my family including lots of cousins.The best part is when they would pop out of the fire ,at least as long as they did not hit anyone .Uncle Ivan and pop pop used to make sure there was a fence around the fire .

 

[Tiny Termite]

Well I carried on shelling the chestnuts today and made huge progress, but I will have to have another peeling session tomorrow. Then I have another 50 or so to roast, but I won't be scoring them this time, I'm just going to cut them in half. I can now understand why chestnuts are so expensive.

 

[snoozer]

I haven't had chestnuts in years. My mom always scored an x on the bottom and roasted the. Alot of work but yummy

 

[Tiny Termite]

All that peeling has made my fingers very sore, so the last 50 or so I have left out for the Squirrels to eat. However, I made a lovely chestnut stock with all the peelings and made a chicken and mushroom casserole with it today adding some crumbled chestnuts into it and it smells yummy.

I buy these chestnuts when not in season,

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/grocery-categories/Chestnuts_in_ASDA.html


but I buy them in bulk when the price is around £1 which is around Christmas time, they have a very long shelf life, but once you open the vacuum packed chestnuts you have to use the whole bag as they go furry very very quickly.

 

[teeemkay]

Free food is awesome. We have two black walnut trees on our property. This was the first year I had time to collect some of the walnut pods as they fell. The squirrels knock them down and work on them--it is a massive feeding frenzy here for about a month. Anyway, black walnuts take a bit of work as you have to pull the soft hull off of them and you have to wear heavy rubber gloves as you work on that part or you will turn your fingers brown (as I learned after wearing just thin disposable latex gloves--I tore a little hole in one and my thumb and thumbnail stayed brown for about 2 weeks.) After you wash the nuts, you put them in a mesh bag to dry and within a few weeks you can start cracking them open... which I haven't gotten to yet. Black walnut hulls are REALLY hard, way harder than the shells on walnuts you get from the grocery store. You have to use a hammer or a vise to get them open. I hope these things taste good... they are supposed to be super-healthy for you.