I have NO idea, but my boyfriend and I harvested a boatload of black walnuts from some local trees on our landlords' property. We've dried them, but now they're just hanging out. Would love to hear suggestions!

mmm. toasted and sprinkled on a mache salad, substitute the half amount in any recipe for pecan crusted chicken, weirdly yummy in a teriyaki glaze for salmon and ice cream!

Chop it fine and roll goat cheese balls in it, then marinate in oil. So incredibly good. Also, very nice in goat cheese croutons.

I eat black walnuts on hot oatmeal in the morning with a drizzle of maple syrup. Awesome. Sometimes I add goji berries.

The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux has a black walnut butter with maple syrup. In the book it is used as a vegetable marinade.

Black walnut ice cream. It's a specialty of the Shenandoah region where they grow wild, along with pig hickory nuts. It's always nice to add a bit of cinnamon to the batch, just a touch.

Just watch out, when you peel them, they will turn your skin awful colors. Turpentine will usually get it off.

sorry..not my type of nut...they taste stale to me :(

A local shop makes black walnuts in honey. They are delectable on yogurt. As far as I can tell, simply mix the walnuts with some honey.

I'll second the ice cream. Black walnuts are much stronger in flavor than an English walnut, and I love them that much more. No comparison. They make a very delicious pie (as you'd do with pecan, sub walnuts), if you have a good gf recipe for tart or pie crust. I've also used them to make pesto.

This makes me think I should have an ice cream maker!!

Vanilla with a dash of bourbon is the best base for the ice cream I'd mentioned.

Also, you don't really need a proper ice cream maker. If you're going to make black walnut ice cream, you could at least make it like hill folk. Get a paint bucket and a coffee tin (or ball jar). Fill the paint bucket with ice and salt on the bottom, pack in the coffee tin with the mixture inside and affix the lid tightly. Pack more ice and rock salt around the tin. Hammer down the lid on the paint bucket and kick it up and down a hill for a while. Then freeze solid.

We have some that fall from our neighbors tree into our yard every fall.....I had no idea they were edible and they usually just go into compost...oops

I haven't done that since I was a kid! I totally forgot about it!! It might have to wait for a day when there isn't so much snow on the hills around here (no way I'm letting a bucket full of that get away from me)!

The Hunger and Thirst foraged food blog (http://hungerandthirstforlife.blogspot.com) is big on black walnut recipes (certainly over 10). And the blogger is gluten-free. Plus, she talks about how to process them.

Walnut pesto (maybe with gluten-free potato gnocchi or just some gluten-free bread?). Or maybe just dipp them into dark chocolate for a gluten-free sweet treat?

First step is to make sure you can crack them. We had black walnut trees in my back yard growing up but could never even figure how to get them open! Plus I hated them because I had pick all the ones that had fallen before I could mow the lawn. The squirrels loved them, though.

Black walnuts are special! Please do not compost them, though. They have toxins that prevent other plants from growing nearby to compete for nutrients. The hulls will stain everything they touch. After they turn black, if they are dry just wet them with a spray from the hose and the hulls should rub off. If you let the hulled nuts dry a week or two they will come out of the shell more easily and the flavor will concentrate. I like to set them on a brick and pound with a hammer. I love them best in sweet things. Use them as you would use other nuts.

I have enjoyed using walnut and dates (with some cocoa) as a crust for a frozen banana cream pie. I love this pie because it's sugar-free and there are only five ingredients.

Whoa, what? I didn't know those were edible! We had a black walnut tree in our backyard growing up, and my dad hated it because it killed the lawn. I always thought they were toxic for this reason. Weird.

Sad news! Particularly since walnuts have a chemical that inhibits growth in other plants. I don't know if composting will eliminate that problem, but I know that walnut mulch is great for areas where you want to prohibit other growth.

Young walnuts (you can easily cut the whole thing in half with a knife, the shell isn't hard) can be used to make nocino (a green walnut liquer http://www.culinaryanthropologist.org/2010/03/nocino-green-walnut-liqueur.html)

Black walnut hulls make an excellent brown dye (tannic acid). To easily hull those puppies, put them in a gravel driveway and drive over them (the gravel keeps the nut whole but the hull breaks and grinds off)

The nuts themselves are a PAIN to open though!

Use those trees!

I was thinking about some kind of appetizer. I don't know what cheese would pair well with walnuts, but I'm pretty sure one does! So that on a cracker with a nut, drizzled with honey or a fig jam or something? Then you can savor the nut in one delicious bite and it makes them a little more special and fancy.

I have a recipe for nocino on my blog-- one of my favourite things to do with black walnuts.:

http://www.cauldronsandcrockpots.com/2012/06/things-to-do-with-baby-black-walnuts/

And I second the 'check out Hunger and Thirst' blog thing, because she's an AMAZING resource for things like that :).

Gluten free cookies are some of the best cookies you will every have

Black walnuts are great until you are getting beaned with them in your backyard. (My childhood home was full of them)

If they are fresh with the soft shell inside the green shell, jam it. Is very common in Turkey fresh walnut jam.

Um...a nutcracker is a wonderful tool. Just sayin.

I'm seriously shocked that so many did not realize they were edible. If this is a rare treat for you, I'd go for the ice cream first. But fair warning...if you start with the ice cream, you might never make it all the other wonderful options mentioned above. (*sheesh* $5 for a handful? Can't wrap my mind around that.)

Enjoy your treat!

Just made baked brie w black walnuts & honey for Oscar night - people tasted the difference in the nuts

I have yet to meet a nutcracker that could conquer the black walnuts! Their rough shells are hard to crack, and as a kit I always resorted to whacking them with rocks or a hammer. If you know of a nutcracker that can easily handle them, please let us know! I may actually bother with the black walnuts again...

*kid

@TATTERH00D: You probably want an old fashioned nut cracker, the style that's mounted on a board or counter rather than hand held. They're ugly, industrial looking and significantly more useful. Mine looks like the one shown here, except it's an old one.

Haha, Kakugori, I don't find them ugly but definitely significantly more useful! Mine belonged to my dad before me. @ TATTERHOOD: a hammer is a wonderful thing. Sandwich the walnuts in a towel & whack away. Practice will give you a sense of how much force to use & then you can open them with little effort.