Homegrown and foraged. Second week of April.

 

The weather here has been so dry, i have only found a handful of small morels this year.  i really haven't seen much of anything, but was really excited to  find these pheasant back/dryads saddle while hiking. They are super young and tender. Still not my favorite, but it's not bad.  Asparagus is slowing coming, we're getting like 1 shoot per day. We should have enough for a meal by the end of May.  i picked a few herbs and wild edibles for tea and to add to our salad. Chickweed, raspberry leaf, lemon balm, peppermint, purple dead nettle, violets and columbine flowers. i love this time of year. #earthprovides

 #homegrownandforaged

Cooking with Chicken of the Woods- Laetiporus sulphureus

Laetiporus sulphureus, are commonly known as sulphur shelf, chicken of the woods, the chicken mushroom, or the chicken fungus because many think they taste like chicken.  As a vegetarian, i can't say i really remember what chicken taste like, but it has a texture that is similar to chicken making it really versatile and easy to use as a replacement in any chicken recipe.

This year we've really been enjoying it. We have found 4 large chicken of the woods harvests so far, and are still watching a couple logs that usually fruit. We picked way more than we could eat at one time, so we froze a ton of it.  The easiest way to preserve chicken of the woods is to freeze it.  Some folks cook it first and others just clean it and put it right in the freezer.  i wasn't sure of which way would work the best, (having never froze it before) so i froze some raw and froze some cooked (cut up strips and sauteed in butter).  Once we have a chance to use it, i'll have a better idea of which method i prefer.

While we had fresh Chicken of the Woods on hand, we feasted on it every day!  Below are a few of my favorite ways to eat it.

'Chicken' fried Steak with mushroom gravy.  This is really just chicken of the woods breaded and fried and covered in gravy.  My kids prefers to dip it in ketchup like nuggets, but the husband and i enjoy it like this.  i served it with homegrown beans, potatoes and fresh picked berries.

Basic recipe-  Clean the chicken of the woods by brushing it off and lightly wash it if needed and cut off any bad/tough spots.  Dip in seasoned flour, then dip in egg wash (egg beaten with a little water) then dip in seasoned breadcrumbs.  Fry both sides until golden brown. Transfer to plates and top with mushroom gravy. 

Mushroom gravy-  

2 1/2 TBSP butter, 

1 cup fresh mushrooms  (i used a combination of oysters, black trumpets, chanterelles and shiitake)

 1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

2 tbsp Tamari 

pepper.

Melt butter in small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add mushrooms and cook until soft. Add flour and mix about 30 seconds; then add broth slowly while whisking. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add tamari and pepper to taste. Cook until gravy achieves desired thickness

We enjoyed a lot of the Chicken of the woods breaded and fried, and then i had the idea to stuff it.

OMGoodness it is so good. i don't have an actual recipe for this, but it's easy enough to do. 

 i cooked some spinach, drained it well and mixed with mozzarella and feta.  Took two pieces of super fresh chicken of the woods that had been trimmed to similar sizes. put a scoop of the mix on one piece, add sliced tomato and then topped with the other piece.

Once i had a few of these sandwiched Chickens together, i breaded and fried them like above.  Dip each 'sandwich' in seasoned flour, then dip in egg wash (egg beaten with a little water) then dip in seasoned breadcrumbs.  Fry both sides until golden brown and transfer into a baking/casserole dish. Once the dish was filled up, i covered it with tin foil and baked it about 20 min. at 385f.  i did this to make sure the chicken of the woods cooked all the way through and the cheese was melty.  This is probably one of my favorite ways to eat it, but it is a bit time consuming to make.

For lunch, i made 'Chicken' salad sandwiches. i diced up the Chicken of the woods mushroom and simmered it in vegetable broth until it was super tender and had absorbed much of the broth.  From there you can use it  just like chicken in your favorite chicken salad recipe. Having never really made chicken salad before, i just added diced onion, diced swiss chard stems (i don't like celery), mayo a little mustard and salt and pepper. Served it on a bun with homegrown lettuce and tomato.  Fresh cucumber, carrots and peaches from the garden.

Another favorite  (and quick) way to prepare it is as BBQ sandwiches. If your Chicken of the woods is really fresh, it will shred just like chicken. If it's dry and crumbling you may want to cut it into slices and simmer it in some broth until it softens up.  i take my freshly shredded Chicken of the woods and add to a pan with a little olive oil, cook over medium heat until it starts browning a bit and then add your favorite BBQ sauce.  Serve on a toasted bun with caramelized onions and cheese. 

There are a ton of recipes out there for Chicken of the woods,it really is super versatile. It's a very firm mushroom and doesn't really get slimy like many other mushrooms do.  Besides the recipes above, i've used it to make 'chicken' pot pie, 'chicken' quesadillas, Fried 'chicken'  more! 

Do you have a favorite Chicken of the Woods recipe? i'd love to hear it! 

Oyster Mushroom Recipes.

We've had a good flush of oyster mushrooms this spring, both from logs we plugged and just foraging. Now that we've learned how to correctly identify them, we seem to see them everywhere! This basket contains foraged oysters and a couple of shiitake we grew.

These are blue oyster just starting to fruit. These are on plugged logs. We grew several variety of oyster mushroom this year. They seem to be the easiest to grow.

First thing i did with our homegrown oyster mushrooms was make a homemade pizza. The pizza crust was made from scratch, i added homemade pizza sauce from tomatoes canned last year, homemade mozzarella cheese, homegrown spinach, asparagus and onion.  Before putting the oyster mushrooms on the pizza i sauteed them with some garlic. It was delicious!

i also used some in an omelet. In the spring, i love making meals using all homegrown foods. These are made using eggs from our hens, spinach, asparagus and sauteed oyster mushrooms. You can tell what is in season right now from the meals i'm making. :) 

We had a lot of the wild oyster mushrooms, so i made them into a vegetarian bbq.  Just cut or shred the oyster mushrooms, saute in a little oil and add bbq sauce. Served them on onion buns with swiss cheese and a homegrown salad with sliced shiitake. These were really tasty!

i also bookmarked this link that has a bunch of yummy looking recipes i can't wait to try! https://homesteading.com/oyster-mushroom-recipes/

It's been a lot of fun growing our own mushrooms, i check the logs daily for any new mushroom growth.  We just plugged more logs with shiitake, so by next year we should have more mushrooms than we know what to do with.  We have so much going on here this year, i'll try to keep up with the updates!

Mushroom farming and foraging.

Spring is a great time for foraging fresh mushrooms! Our favorites to find are the morels, but we've slowly been learning to safely identify and forage other types as well. 

We found a couple dozen morels in the woods behind our house. It wasn't a spectacular harvest, but i'm not complaining. We enjoyed them breaded & fried and also sauteed with butter & garlic. They are one of the easiest wild mushrooms to identify. 

 Last spring we plugged a bunch of logs with mushroom spores, and have been patiently waiting for them to fruit. It usually takes about a year, but we were getting a few here and there this past fall so we were hoping for a good harvest this spring.  We got a large water trough to help soak the logs to make sure they were staying damp enough.  Within just a few days of soaking these elm oysters began fruiting!

One of my first harvest pictures of the season. Homegrown spinach, lettuce, asparagus and oyster mushroom. i also foraged morels, chickweed, lambs quarter and purslane.

We have another oyster log beginning to fruit.  It has several clusters like this on it. 

 We also have a gorgeous shiitake coming in one of the logs. So far these have just been one at a time, i'd really love to see them take off and really fruit. The shiitakes are really yummy.

We spend so much time looking at our cultivated mushroom logs that we tend to forget about the wild ones that often fruit on the stumps of the trees that we cut about 7 years. Yesterday i was walking through the goat field and saw this giant flush of oysters in the woods on the other side of the fence. They were growing from a Tulip Poplar stump.

So far it's looking like a great mushroom season! We are in the process of plugging more logs and hope to continue cultivating fresh mushrooms for years to come.

Morel hunting with a bit of Magic.

 Morel hunting is one my favorite spring activities. As soon as the soil warms up, i'm out hiking the woods behind our house almost every morning looking for morels.  Morel season is tricky, as the mushrooms are very sensitive to weather and need specific growing conditions to grow.  We first stumbled upon a patch of morels the first year we moved here, and have been addicted to hunting them ever since.

Morel season tends to start around the end of of March first week of April here.  i've found most morels on our land between the second week of April and first week of May, This year we had a pretty heavy frost at the beginning of April, and it seemed to affect the season.  i went out several times, and finally found a handful of grays. 

Morel season always coincides with the beginning of asparagus season. The two go well together, and if i don't have enough morel to bread and fry i usually make an omelet with them or add them to a homemade pizza.  This year, morel season was really disappointing.  All of my favorite spots were pretty dry. i only found around 5 in the spot i considered my 'honey hole'. i didn't find any in my old spots, where i usually still find a few each year. 

Mother's Day morning i went out on a hike alone determined to find morels. i checked all my old spots again and lots of new spots. i was all over the woods.  After 1.5 hours of looking, i finally admitted defeat. Before heading home i made a plea to the fairies of the forest.

 "Today is Mother's day, i only need to find one and then i'll be on my way...".

 i look down and less than one foot away is this giant morel. It was over 6" tall.

It was the perfect beginning to a wonderful day.  There is a magic in the forest that can't really be explained. If you sit quietly and listen you can hear the whispering among the trees. Perhaps it's the voices of our ancestors, the spirit of the forest, the fairies that play there or the energy that many refer to as god or mother nature... i don't really know the answer, but i do know it is there. 

"Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

 -Roald Dahl

Morel Season begins!!

About 15 years ago, not long after moving down to VA, my friend and i were hiking through our woods and stumbled upon a morel patch.  She was the first to notice them, and once we'd seen one the other just seemed magically begin appearing.  This was the beginning of my morel hunting addiction. 

Every year since then, i've gone out in the early spring morel hunting.  That original magical patch dried up years ago, but we have learned what to look for and when to look and over the years have found several new patches.

Morels need very specific conditions in order to grow. The soil temperature has to be perfect, and  there are several things to look for that hint towards the perfect time.  Once the bloodroot begins to bloom i start looking for the trillium and mayapples.

Toadshade Trillium was the first to appear. So i started walking through the wood each day looking for a sign of the morels. 

Then the Red trillium aka Stinking Benjamin, started popping up, along with the mayapples.  As soon as i saw the trillium and mayapples coming up, i knew the temps were right. We had a several days of rain, and everything seemed to be popping up overnight.   This is the best indication that the soil temp is perfect, and the rais is what really gets them going.

i went out hiking in the rain to my favorite spots to look for the elusive morel. i saw several of these orange newts, which is another good indication that the soil temp is correct.  Last year i found a bunch of these guys and while squatting down to get a picture of one i found the morels. So now i think of these guys as the morel guardians since i always seem to find them in the same area that i find the mushrooms.

Last year i stumbled upon a honey hole. So as soon as i noticed the right conditions i started checking for morels.  i've been going out almost every day, but not finding any. After looking back at some older posts i knew that i've typically found them around April 30th- May 5th,  but the flowers are blooming earlier this year. So the mushrooms should be here.  i scoured the area, but didn't find a thing, just as i'm about to give up i look down and see it. 

As always once you see that first one, the the others just sort of magically appear. They were small, and extremely difficult to find. i left several that were too small to pick and will check again in a few days after they've had some time to grow. 

Morel hunting has become a favorite family activity in the spring. The kids are great at spotting the morels and can recognize the different flowers, knows most of their names, and are learning all the signs of when and where to start looking for morels.  

There are very few other fungus that look like morels, so identification is easy.  However, if you've never hunted morels before make sure and familiarize yourself with false morels and other look-a-likes.   You can find a bit of info on knowing the difference here . The most obvious difference is that morels are hollow. Both the cap and the stem is hollow. So if you are unsure if you have a morel or a false morel, split the stem in half. The false morel will be full of cottony fiber and plant tissues, while the morel is smooth and hollow.  Never consume any wild mushroom unless you are 100% sure of what it is. 

Happy Mushroom hunting!

The Magic of Morel Hunting

Every spring we look forward to morel hunting. Some folks really love the flavor of morels. i admit, they just taste like a mushroom to me, nothing all that special.  The thing that makes them exciting to find is in the hunt itself.

 Morels are funny things. i often tell people the best way to find morels is to stop looking. In all our years of morel hunting we almost always find the first one as soon as we 'give up'.   Once you you spot that first one, the others just seem to appear all around as if they were little wood sprites hiding the whole time. 

Morel season typically begins around the middle of April and can last until June, depending on weather conditions. i've learned from experience that they first start appearing the same time the trillium and mayapples begin to appear.  Last week i was thinking about morels, so we too a drive to a spot where we'd found some a few years back. Once we got there and took a look at the wildflowers that were blooming i realized we were still a bit early.  i knew that the dwarf iris were in full bloom when the morels appeared.

Last week while cleaning out my native wildflower bed, i spotted this tiny little morel! It's was less than an inch tall and had just started coming up. We had rain predicted for later that week and i knew that after the rain, once the sun came out the morels would start appearing.  In the passed when we found morels i would shake them over this garden hoping that they would eventually spore.  For the last few years i have found one or two morels in the bed each spring. i never pick them, always hoping they will spore and become well established here. Morels are tricky though, and conditions have to be perfect for them to grow.

After the rain, i waited a few days and then took off hiking in the woods behind our house. i crossed over the little creek, and headed up an embankment where i saw a large tree down. There are a lot of trees down in our woods, but i just had a feeling about this one.

The first thing that caught my eye was the bright orange red spotted newt efts that seemed to be every where.  i squatted down to get a picture of one, and to my surprise saw a morel right next to it!

So then i began to look around. i saw more efts, and mor morels!  They were not easy to find.  i found most right around that large downed tree, but found many others in the same area but several yards away. Some were in a ravine, and some were in an open area that was full of green woodland plants. i don't know what type of tree was down, but i believe it was hardwood, most likely an oak tree or a poplar.  From what i have read, morels are most often found around dead elm trees, under old apple trees and occasionally around oak and poplar. 

After hunting the area and finding as many i could, i headed back home. i always collect morels in an old onion bag hoping that they drop spores along the way.  i wandered down to our creek where there in an old apple tree. For years i've carried the morels down there hoping to get them to spore under the tree.  To my surprise when i  began shaking my morel bag under the tree, i found a couple already coming up there!

The next day i took the family out morel hunting.  My girl gave up before she even started looking and was the first to find one! 

My boy was feeling a bit discouraged when every one had found one except him. As soon as he gave up, he found one!

My husband found the largest one, and was incredibly proud of it. lol.

My picture is a bit blurry, but this was the first batch that found. i found a few others after this, and my total for this spring is at 43.  That's the most i have ever found! We are getting rain again today, so i'm already excited about going out hunting again this weekend. 

We prepared the morels by dipping them in seasoned flour and frying them in butter. They are quite tasty, but for me the best part is really just in the magic of finding them.

Garden update- May

Every spring i get eager to start planting early, but the weather never quite cooperates. With our low flow well, i can not irrigate and so i am very dependent on the rain. Without a working tiller i've been turning the soil by hand. It is heavy with clay and very dry, so i've had to wait for the rain to soften the soil enough to turn it and pull the weeds.  Too much rain and it's a muddy mess that washes all the seeds away. So i often find myself obsessing about the weather and waiting for those perfect days to plant and work outside.

We were still getting freezing temperatures the second week of April, so some of my cool crops were planted later than i like.  Last year i was enjoying my first salad near the end of April, but this year i'm just beginning to pick fresh greens the second week of May.

Another week and i can start putting my summer veggies out. i have 30+ potted tomatoes i've grown from seed. Most every thing else i seed directly in the ground.

My spinach is finally big enough to pick. i like to pinch off some of the baby leaves for salad, and allow the rest of the plant to continue growing. i sow spinach seeds in a few different gardens and stagger the plantings so that i am harvesting it for a extended time. It's a cool weather crop, and does well in partial shade. It tends to bolt a little slower when it stays cooler during the day. Spinach freezes well, and we eat a ton of it, so you just can't really plant too much.

My loose leaf salad greens are ready to be picked. This is the red and green oak leaf lettuce. i also planted a red romaine, a speckled head lettuce, majesty lettuce, red salad bowl, Black seeded simpson  and a mesclun  mix.  Lettuce also does well in partial shade for extended season growing.

We've been working on asparugus bed for several years. i add a few new crowns each year, and we are constantly building up the soil. It still seems like we never have enough. :) Although the plants are doing well, and producing lots of spears,  it still takes about 1 week of collecting spears before i have enough for one meal. 

First harvest of 2014, a bit later than usual.  We've been eating a bit crappy all winter, so it's really nice to have a homegrown salad and fresh asparagus for dinner. i've been working on my strawberry patch this spring and am hoping it does well. Most of the plants are just flowering, but i did find a couple red berries.  

The little morels i found behind the house a few days ago. i've found 43 this year, which is a record for me. i've never done an serious morel hunting, and tend to only find them when i'm not looking. :) Always a treat and exciting to find.  We are getting a lot of eggs right now and are able to share them with a neighbor which is always nice.

We are supposed to get some rain this weekend, so hopefully i'll be spending the next few days getting the rest of the garden turned and planted. i have broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, purple potatoes, swiss chard, peas, garlic onions, beets and kale planted and starting to come in.  i planted some summer squash yesterday, and am still trying to figure out where i am going to plant everything. Last year we were hit with late blight that affected the tomatoes and potatoes in all of my gardens, so i need to figure out a different place to put them this year.  i also have voles in my sweet potatoes bed, and the one of the other gardens so i have to find a new place to put sweet potatoes and other root vegetables as well. 

i've been reading that castor oil is a good deterrent for voles, so i'm going to try that. They really did a ton of damage last year, i found tunnels in my raised beds and in almost all of my gardens. i think part of this is because i didn't have a cat outside patrolling the area.  Tom typically hung out by those gardens and was quite good at catching the voles. Last year we were in the camper, and although Tallulah was outside a lot during the summer she stayed close to the camper and so she wasn't spending any time in the gardens that the voles were in. Now that we are back in a house, she hangs out closer to the garden and i'm really hoping she helps control the vole population this year.

Every year we are faced with new garden challenges. i'm really hoping we can get through a year without the late blight, which is just devastating. i bought floating row covers, so i'm going to try using them on broccoli and squash. Cabbage worms and vine borers are always a problem, and the row cover should help with that. 

We have a lot of projects we are working on this spring, and i hope to try and document some of them (i'm never very good at that. ).  Right now, just getting the garden in is the main goal.  

Nature Walks.

Spring is my absolute favorite time of year. After what felt like the longest winter in history, i was so very ready for spring to finally arrive. i've been outside almost every day hiking, wandering the woods and digging in my garden!  Exploring the woods and looking for wildflowers is one of my favorite activities.

Bloodroot is one of the first to appear. We've also been seeing a lot of wood violets, anemones and star chickweed.

Trillium is another favorite. This deep crimson comes up everywhere. It is sometimes called Wake Robin or Stinking Benjamin. :)  i have transplanted trillium in white, pink and yellow onto our property in hopes of getting them to spread. 

Jack in the pulpit. This one is always fun to find! Such an unusual plant.

i also came across this interesting plant for the first time. It's called Largeflower Heartleaf and it's a type of wild ginger! The flowers are small and hidden near the ground so i've never really noticed them before. Now that i've identified it, i'm finding the plants every where!

So i admit, i like finding morels much more than i like eating them. They are tasty, but for me the fun is in the hunt!  Earlier this week the kids and i hiked all over the woods looking for morels, but didn't find any.  On our way back through the yard i spotted this lone morel about 5 feet from the garden. :)  

i can't wait to go out this weekend and hunt for more. We have a couple secret spots we like to check, and this is definitely the weekend to do it!

So it's been three months since our house fire, and i am just now starting to feel a bit like myself again. Getting out of this house, and be able to dig in the dirt and hike has really helped to lift our spirits. 

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.  ~John Muir

Apple Season!

A few weeks ago i posted about our foraged apples. We ended up with over 3 bushel of apples.  i was really hoping that they would store well, so that we could continue to enjoy fresh apples into the winter. However, they are not storing well at all.  Like the wild apples we've foraged in the past, they often contain worms and internal spots.  So although the apples look okay on the outside, the are slowing rotting from the inside out and need to be used up asap.

 What does one do with 3 bushel of apples??

 

Make apple sauce of course!!  So far i have made about 4 dozen pint jars of applesauce and i'm still making more. i also canned a few jars of pie filling and i'm planning to make apple butter next.

 

i also used my juicer to make fresh apple cider. Yum!! It was so easy and good.

 

Then turned some of the the apple cider into boiled apple cider, so that i could make Apple cider donuts using this recipe.  i didn't add the fiber, and i used regular cinnamon. They turned out pretty good, but more like cake than a donut.  i was a little bummed the recipe only makes 6...:)

i also made apple sauce pancakes with apple cider syrup using this recipe.  These are really tasty. :)

 

We also tried our hand at making Shrunken heads, thanks to Martha's Tutorial i think they came out okay. They are definitely not as easy as she makes it look.

My boy made a few as well, but they were a little too tricky for my girl who is 6.  We made 7 and are now watching and waiting for them to begin to shrink.  We may make a few more if these look like they are shrinking nicely. i'm a bit worried about them just rotting and molding.

So as you can see we have really been enjoying our apples!! i made an apple crisp once, and have been planning to make apple bars and apple pie.  i still have 1 and 1/3 bushels left!
Do you have any favorite apple recipes to share? i'd love to hear them!