Warm fiddlehead salad

Served with a generous portion of roasted potatoes and some thick slices of wheat bread, this salad makes a lovely centerpiece for a tasty vegetarian meal.

Wash, clean and snip the ends of about two cups of fiddleheads. In a non-stick pan, sautee a clove or two of minced garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. First, grind 1 tsp dried rosemary, 1/2 tsp marjoram, 1 1/2 tsp sea salt, about ten pepper corns and 1 good pinch of red pepper flakes in a mortar. Add this dried mix of herbs to a mix of 1 tbsp vinegar and 3 tbsp olive oil.

When the fiddleheads are ready (about ten minutes; more if you prefer them softer), allow them to cool for about 5 minutes. Mix with the dressing and serve warm.

Spicy sausage & fiddlehead stew

The hot sausages are from Appleton farm's grass-fed beef and the fiddleheads are from my sister Corrine who picked them in Weld, Maine. With some sliced onion and minced garlic, a little salt and pepper, all of these things together made a most delicious, simple and healthy meal.


In a dutch oven, sautee the onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Cut the sausages into chunks, add to the onions and garlic and stir, cooking on medium-low heat until browned.

Add the fiddleheads, salt and pepper and stir. Add about an inch of water and bring to a boil. Drop the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Serve hot with a side of vegetables, like sauteed carrots and turnips seen here.

Total prep and cook time : about 40 minutes

Total cost : about 5 dollars for two people (more if you bought the fiddleheads)

Fiddlehead casserole

When Adele was in Maine last week her sister Corrine gave her a whopping bag of fiddleheads that she had harvested along a stream in Weld. We got right to work using them up, and fiddlehead casserole was the first thing we made.

Here's what you need:
1/2 onion, chopped
a few cloves of garlic
8 eggs
feta cheese
butter
(no salt, the feta takes care of that)

The first step is to fry the onions in butter until translucent.

Butter the bottom and sides of an 8 x 11 1/2" glass dish and spread the onions evenly over the bottom. Then spread a generous layer of fiddleheads over the onions.

Now spread a generous layer of feta cheese over the fiddleheads.

Beat the eggs in a bowl (add milk if you'd like it to be more like a quiche) and pour evenly over the other ingredients. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until eggs have set.

Serve with a side salad or any other veggie.

Fiddler on the stove

It's fiddlehead season! Not only is this greenery a beautiful and delicate work of nature for me, it's also synonymous with community and small town relations. One of my first memories is of picking them with my mother and a few of my sisters along a riverbed with other random folks with whom we struck up small conversation. There's also the man I used to buy them from when I was in graduate school - straight from the riverbed to the back of his truck parked on route 2 to my hands. And then there's the old couple in Frederickston, New Brunswick, selling them on the sidewalk in front of their house. Josh and I picked up a bag and had a wonderful meal that night in the little cabin we'd rented in St. Agathe, way up in Northern Maine.

The way I cooked them tonight is the way my mother cooks her greens, with pork fat grease. Normally, she uses salt pork, but all I had on hand was bacon but this works just as well.

What you need: fiddleheads, small potatoes cut in half (optional), half an onion, sliced, and about 2 tbsp of thinly sliced salt pork or bacon.


Put the pork fat in a dutch oven and heat it on medium low until the pieces get crispy and you have enough oil to work with. Remove the crispy pieces from the pan with a slotted spoon and reserve for later use.

Sautee the onions for a few minutes and then add the potatoes, if you're going to use them. Cook until the onion is translucent.

Add the fiddleheads, just enough water to barely cover and salt generously. Bring to a boil, cover and drop the temperature to simmer for about half an hour.

Serve hot with the crispy bacon pieces sprinkled on top, either as a side dish with any piece of beef or pork or as a main dish with a side of vegetables and grains, like we did here.