Wild Blessings

A learning resouce to exploring wild edible plants

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      • Autumn Olive Berry Jam
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      • Cattail Green Cobs
      • Wild Carrot Cake
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      • Cattail Chicken Cacciatorre
      • Cattail Shoot Tzaziki Sauce
      • Pickled Cattail Shoots w/ Yellow Dock Seed Crackers
      • Wild Chai
      • Bruschetta Rounds w/ Chickweed Pesto & Tomato
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      • Crabgrass Muffins
      • Dandelion Buds in a Bacon Dressing
      • Dandelion Flower Buds Marinated
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      • Egg Foo Young w/ Sheep Sorrel
      • Elderflower Fritters
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      • Lambs Quarters: Spanakopita
      • Lambs Quarter Spread
      • Maple Butternut Squash Soup
      • Milkweed AuGratin
      • Milkweed Broccoli: flower buds
      • Hot & Sour Soup w/ Milkweed Bud Peas & Burdock Root
      • Milkweed Casserole
      • Italian Milkweed Pod Casserole
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      • Oriental Venison & Milkweed Pods Stir Fry
      • Nettle Soup
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      • Iced Chicory Root Coffee w/ Raw Cream
      • Wild Pesto Pasta
      • Pine Needle Popsicles
      • Prickly Pear Jam or Syrup or Jelly…
      • Prickly Pear Salsa
      • Purslane Quinoa Salad
      • Purslane Tomato Salad
      • Sweet Pickled Purslane Stems
      • Oriental Wild Salad w/ Edible Flowers, Noodles & Oriental Dressing
      • Flour Free Maple Brownies
      • June Wild Greek Foods Feast: MENU
      • NYC Style Chopped Wild Salad
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      • Wild Seed Crackers
      • Seed Fudge
      • Sorrel & Burdock stem Caponate
      • Sumac Rosemary Elderberry Caper Grilled Chicken
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      • Yellow Dock Crackers
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    • Your Feet
    • My Foraging Prayer
    • From the Rising of the Sun
    • A Plant Analogy to Sin
    • Atheism
  • Blog
  • June 25, 2022

Welcome to Wild Blessings

A learning resource that can help you get outside and connect with nature.

Offering instruction and resources to help you enjoy and benefit from time outdoors, your guide to learning more about creation and the One who made it!

 

Upcoming Classes

Wild Blessings Classes are an important way to get involved in learning with real hands-on experience. Check often to see updates. To learn more about these different opportunities, go to the Classes page.

TEACHING TUESDAYS

When: Every Tuesday on line 8-9pm EST

Where: Facebook: Wild Blessings w/ Holly Drake (a private group, request to join) or Wild Blessings YouTube channel

Next Class: The Topic of Befriending Plants will be aired on June 28, 2022 (I shared this talk at the Deep South Herbalism Conference in Alabama).  The -INGS of Friendship with plants. Going from Strangers to Allies.

 

PLANT WALKS

With food prices soaring, it is time to Forage!   Ever wonder what wild riches lie all around you waiting to be discovered and valued as they have been for centuries past? I can help you! Join me for a plant walk to discover what is in God’s grocery stores. Knowing plants in all their life cycles, learning which parts to gather and how to prepare them for food and medicine is a skill that you can cultivate, one plant at a time.  I will be featuring 10 wild edible plants that likely grow near you or in your yard.  You will learn to recognize them by careful observation, and fun introduction methods to help you remember each plant and learn how to harvest and use each of them for food and healing.  We will enjoy a wild tea and snack together.

When: Saturday, June 25, 9-11am

Where: 279 Deer Crossing, Todd, NC 28684 and other locations TBA

Cost: $25/person – $10 for Wild Blessings Patreon members

Who: Class size is limited to 15 people. A waiting list will be kept to fill any cancellations.

Here is the link to sign up for June 25 Wild Blessings Plant Walk 

Wild Blessings Plant Walks will be held on most Saturday mornings throughout the Summer at various locations.  I’ll post new sign ups a week before each event.

The July 23rd Plant Walk will be in Warrensville on Barbara and Steve Due’s land.

BEFRIENDING PLANTS

When: Bimonthly on Tuesday’s from 9-11

Where: At Holly’s house – 279 Deer Crossing, Todd, NC 28684

What: This is an in-person gathering where we celebrate one plant (some of my green allies) to get to know it utilizing all of our senses.  Experiencing each plant through observation, learning, writing, drawing, story telling, poetry writing and then herbing around with it to make a fitting herbal preparation (to take home) and wild snack to enjoy together.

Who: People who really want to make the green world their grocery store and medicine chest.  This is an investment to take your herbal learning to a whole new depth.

Cost: $35 general admission  $20 Patreon members  (please pay via PayPal, Venmo in advance, at hollydrake56@gmail.com)

Next Class:  Tuesday, July 5,2022  we will be Befriending Yarrow  (you will be blown away at what this magnificent plant can do! It is a green WARRIOR!  We will make a healing Yarrow Wound Spray, and make a gluten free Yarrow Pasta for our snack.  Each class we will sample the tea of our featured plant to get to know it by the taste of it’s simple tea.  Yarrow tea works so well with fevers.  Everyone will have a spray bottle of Yarrow Wound Spray to take home and the handouts that I provide for this class.   RSVP required.    By the end of a season of this in person herbal intensive you will have learned the basic herbal preparations, lots of wild cooking tips an started to build your own herbal monographs, and personal apothecary.  So excited about

Future dates for Befriending Plants Classes July 19, August 2, August 16, August 30, September 13, September 27, October 11, October 25

Link to sign up for this event

 

FORAGE TO FEAST

I am a wild foods chef and have offered many wild food feasts where the guests come to learn, forage for wild edibles, and cook a meal together. The cuisine is sometimes Asian, Greek, Italian, Mexican and Indian or just seasonal. All non-wild ingredients are organic, farm fresh and increasingly gluten free.  Meats are grass finished, happy animals from local farms or local game. Here is a blog showing what Wild Blessings Forage to Feasts have looked like over the many years of hosting them.  https://wildblessings.com/wild-times-remembered/

July 16th Forage to Feast is a Wild Fiesta

When: Saturday, July 16, 4-8pm

Where: Meet at Blackburn’s Chapel parking lot where we will carpool to our ‘wild shopping centers’.

Cost: $85/person – $45 for Wild Blessings Patreon members

Who: Class size is limited to 10 people. A waiting list will be kept to fill any cancellations.

What:  A forage to dining experience.  Foraging, Garbling, Cooking and Eating together

Wild Fiesta Menu 

(Menu subject to change depending on the number of cooks signed up!)

Wild Beverages: Elderflower Cordial Watermelon Slushies
Hibiscus Tea, Peach Tea, Burdock Kefir

Wild Guacamole
Purslane Mango Salsa
Wild Salad & Wild Dressing
Poke Pinto Beans
Fried Maple Plantains
Lambsquarter/ Amaranth Taquitos
Burdock Root Tacos
Wild Mexican Rice
Verdolago Con Huevos w/ Milkweed Broccoli
Elderflower Coconut Milk Ice Cream
Autumn Olive Berry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Fruit Bowl w/ Mint
Iced Dandelion Root Coffee, Hot Beebalm Tea

Here is the link to this Forage to Feast Event for July 16

Future Forage to Feasts this Summer of 2022 will be held on these dates:

June 18 (Wild Brunch)

July 16 (Wild Fiesta)

August 20 (Wild Asian Cuisine)

September 17 (Wild Mediterranean Cuisine)

October 15 (Wild American Cuisine)

 

SPECIAL EVENTS

Wild Blessings Library Event

When: Tuesday, July 25, 5-6:30pm

Where: Watauga Library, in the Community Room

Cost: Free

What:  I will be teaching on The Restorative Power of Nature

95% of our time is spent indoors addicted to screens and the cost is high –  diminished use of senses, attention and focus difficulties, higher rates of physical illness, higher rates of emotional illness… The statistics are alarming yet the answer is simple.  Time in nature.

Time in Nature can be just the adventure we need to reset our focus, heal our bodies, and feed our souls..restoring a sense of wonder.  Come and learn practical ways to interact with nature as your classroom, physician and playground in reclaiming the many gifts given by our Creator for our enjoyment and wellbeing   This will be an interactive presentation, utilizing all five senses. We need green time, not screen time!    “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver

Horn in the West 75th Celebration

When: Friday, August 6, throughout the day

Where: Horn in the West

Cost: Free

What:  A Wild Blessings Foraging presentation.  Handouts and wild snack table offered to the public.

How to help: You can help by bringing a wild food snack to share on the Wild Potluck table. From  roots  to  fruits!

TESTIMONIALS FROM WILD BLESSING STUDENTS

“Ever wanted to know what plants are edible in your own backyard?
Curious which plants on your property would have been used for first aid situations by humans in previous generations? To forage safely for wild edibles and medicinals, you need a guide. And if you live in the High Country or are visiting, you’re in luck, because Holly is amazing. She can show you the poisonous look-alikes, teach you about the plant’s properties and nutrition, AND show you how to prepare them – or, rather, she has you do the hands-on work yourself. I’ve learned so much from Holly over the years, and am proud to call her a friend. You should check out her class!
(I don’t do promotions, but I love Holly and her work, and think humans should reclaim some of this lost knowledge about the plants around us. Did you know you probably have a spinach substitute growing on your property that is tastier and packs more protein – and it’s free? You have to find out!) —” Laura Weant

 

Videos

Classes presenting online are available for viewing through YouTube. Click to watch.

       

About Wild Blessings

Welcome to my website. My name is Holly Drake and I love to study, teach, and talk about wild foods. I live in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina with my husband Jason and my dog Max where I explore the beauty of God's creation to learn as much as I can about wild foods that are available to us for free.

Recent Posts

  • Asian Cuisine Forage to Feast
  • Asian Forage to Feast – Saturday
  • Wild Fiesta Forage to Feast
  • The Wildly Preserved
  • Befriending Plants – The Presence of Pine
  • You Know You are a Forager When…
  • Wild Food Recipe Secrets
  • Wild Blessings Video of Adventures
  • Befriending Plants: Magnificent Mullein
  • Oils in the Life of Jesus Christ: April 2, 2021
  • Wild Blessing’s Final Fling – Plantasia
  • Thank God for Goldenrod
  • Curses and Blessings…BURdock
  • Befriending Plants…Heal All
  • Wild Shopping Tips
  • Foraging in April
  • The Passing of a Pioneer, Linda Runyon
  • Forage to Feast with Marc Williams
  • A Dandelion Celebration
  • Tapping Maples
  • My Facebook Confession
  • Pine is Fine
  • Paleo Wild and Free
  • A Personal Hero, Linda Runyon
  • Spring Fling March 31
  • Wild Food Lunch w/ Friends
  • Why Eat Wild Foods
  • Sean Croxton Goes Wild
  • Wild Fermentation 101
  • Wild Times Remembered
  • Forest Fairies
  • Holly’s Wild Shopping Guide
  • Wild Stew w/ Beech Nuts
  • Wild Fried Wontons

 

Support Wild Blessings

 

Help me offer many resources and classes for free.

 

PATREON – You can become a regular supporter on Patreon.com. Go to their website, or search for Patreon.com/wildblessings and sign up to be a regular contributor.

 


 

PAYPAL – Whether you are paying for an upcoming event or contributing a donation, you can always use PayPal.com. Look there for my account, Holly Drake.

CONTACT:
HollyDrake56@gmail.com
 

          

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