no ducks here-just black walnuts

greg setter

greg setter

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Black walnuts are an abundant tree where I live in southwest New Jersey. I like to collect them in the early fall and after they dry out start eating them in December. I've tried a bunch of ways to crack them, and found that laying them flat and breaking them into quarters with a big ballpeen hammer works pretty good. If they are dried well and you hit them just right, you can get them with the the first whack of the hammer and the nut meat comes out pretty easily. Here are some after I cracked them.

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I also freeze about 80 lbs of local blueberries every summer and have them for breakfast every weekday with some yogurt. Mixing in the walnuts when I have them adds some great flavor in the mornings, about two tablespoons does it.

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I really like the flavor better than English walnuts, even though it is a bit time consuming.
 
I agree black walnuts are very flavorful, right up there with hickory nuts. Both are time-consuming to crack/pick compared to say pecans.... we
 
Blueberries and walnuts, those are some good breakfast eats. We put-up a lug of blueberries each July...
 
Greg~


Ever tried roasting them - to help the husks split? (I may have back in my college years - but no longer recall the results.)


All the best,


SJS

 
Dave-we don't have shagbark hickory's around here, but there are plenty in PA. I have a friend that has several, but they didn't have many nuts this year, I'm hoping to get some next fall. Ever since Ewell Gibbons did the Grapenuts commercials I've wanted to get some hickory nuts:)

RL-I bought a chest freezer several years back just for blueberries. I get them in 10 lb boxes and I can get 100 lbs in there.

Steve-that's a great idea, I will try that next fall.
 
That is an impressive amount of anti-oxidants! We make forty pounds last until late June for two of us...and the dogs, who get one each in the morning as Karen makes her breakfast bowl. No, I don't advocate feeding the dogs, but I just live here and do half the cooking!
 
Cool stuff. We put up lots of blackberries every year. And pick a good number if pecans from tree in our neighborhood.
Have any of y?all gathered butternuts? We had two mature butternut trees in our yard back up in PA but never gathered or used them.
 
I grew up with my mother cracking Walnuts and Butternuts on an old steel flat iron. Wonderful in cookies and candy. I picked up about 20 Butternuts and am going to try to get them to sprout this summer. We have Butternut Canker in S W Minnesota and it's killed most all the Butternuts around here. We've got 8 large Walnut trees in the yard and no shortage of squirrels. They get most all the nuts.

Greg, have you tried making syrup from the Walnut sap? We have a friend cooking now, so I'm hoping to get a taste. He says it's richer than Maple syrup.

George
 
Hi George, I did not know syrup could be made from walnut trees. I actually don't have any in my yard, but they grow everywhere around town, so it's not hard to find pretty much all of the nuts you would want. They are really good to bake with. There are butternuts in parts of Pennsylvania, but none around here as far as I know.
 
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