Mushroom Season 2010-11

Mushroom season is underway - despite all the rain we have had, the chanterelle season is lagging about six weeks behind last year's season.  Last year I was harvesting 40-60 pounds of mushrooms/week by this time of year!  This year - I'm lucky to come out with 4-6 pounds.  Most of the chanterelles are closer to the edge of any given stand of trees where they get a bit more warmth, quite a few buttons.

Lots of other foragers are finding bonanzas in other areas but - being the creature that they are - they aren't giving up the information on where they are finding stuff!  Hoping to head out to Salt Point State Park next week to look for black trumpets, hedgehogs, maybe some late porcini and other good stuff.  Mushroom reports & pictures coming soon!  I've sprayed my shoes & rain jacket with Scotch Guard just to be ready! Maybe I should go do my hat, too...

Persimmons are BACK! - Persimmon Bread Pudding for BREAKFAST!

If you're like me - an avid forager & kitchen witch - you might wake up one morning to discover that 40 of the 212 persimmons you harvested and have spread out on cookie sheets, trays and the little cardboard trays that once held pint and half pint canning jars - are ripe and already have been discovered by the ants.  Fortunately, the ants never get farther than under the little crown of four leaves at the stem and are easily evicted under running water.

After filling six dehydrator sheets with sliced persimmon, and putting 11 cups of persimmon pulp into freezer bags - you then discover that the gallon bag of croutons and the decidedly non-vegan chicken parts rescued from the freezer of a friend moving to Portland (to pass along to another friend for chicken stock - hey, the chicken is already dead!) - are taking up so much space that you don't have much room for more persimmon pulp in the freezer.

Then, the next morning - say, today - you wake up and find that only 3-4 persimmons, small ones at that, are really super ripe and it's not worth adding them to the dehydrator when you can kill two birds with one stone by using up some of those fabulous sourdough croutons.

Ladies & Gems - I give you:


Persimmon Bread Pudding


INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups bread cut into 1"-1.5" chunks (last night's leftover baguette baseball bat is ok!)
• 3 cups almond milk (regular or vanilla)
• 2-3 small Hachiya persimmons so ripe that you have to take care not to pierce the skin with your fingertip
• 1/3-1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 Tb ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground clove
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup raisins or currants or dried cranberries (or some other dried fruit - chopped dried apricots, nectarines or apples might be nice!)
• 3/4 coarsely chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pour almond milk into your blender up to the 2 cup mark.
2. Cut hachiyas in half and scoop out pulp with a big tablespoon, straight into the blender.
3. Check the level - add more almond milk to bring it up to 3 or 3.5 cups.
4. Add maple syrup (reserving 3 TB), cinnamon, clove, vanilla to the blender cup - put the lid on and process til smooth.
5. Pour custard onto bread crumbs in a large mixing bowl - let soak 5-10 minutes, depending on how tough your bread is already.  You want it to absorb a lot of the liquid and there will still be some liquid floating around.
6. Mix in raisins and toasted nuts gently - don't mash up the bread!
7. Transfer to a lightly greased gratin dish or baking dish - the depth of the dish affects the cooking time and the final outcome.  If you like a soft, custardy bread pudding, use a deeper dish - if you like it to be a little more chewy and crispy, use a more shallow dish.
8. Drizzle reserved maple syrup on top.
9. Bake in 375 oven for 20 minutes - the bread pudding will bubble and get puffy - it will settle a bit after it cools.

Eat it warm or cold!

Squash, pears & lemons!

This morning I started to feel a return to the normal rhythms of summer after being laid up following knee surgery - yeah, I sure know how to have fun!  My friend James gifted me some giant squash last weekend and I admit - I blinked - some of my cocozelle got really enormous.  But having 20# of overgrown squash in the kitchen doesn't present enough of a challeng.

This morning, I borrowed a friend's truck and headed off to pick pears & lemons at someone's house in Kensington.  The pears are small and green, falling easily off the tree - none are really ripe yet so I don't know how they will taste.  The lemons were offered while I was busy picking pears - and they are round, soft ripe Meyer lemons that smell positively gorgeous.

On the way home, I stopped at the Temescal Farmer's Market and ran into Asiya from ForageOakland - I hustled her to the parking lot to load her bag with pears & lemons - we had a nice chat about her blog (go check it out!) and caught up a bit.   James took a few pears and lemons on Sunday, and more are promised to Veronika later this week.  Time to go plan some preserving projects & check in on my garden!

Evergreen Rd Morels!

Last week, a last minute invitation was extended to head to the Sierras and go find some morels.  I hopped in my friend's Zipcar, along with another of her friends and we went up to the Stanislaus National Forest to see what the MSSF folks left behind after their 2010 morel foray.

From the moment we got to our camp - we hit the jackpot.  Keith spotted something growing next to the fire pit and plucked up a somewhat darking black morel and ran off to show it to Kathryn before I caught a proper glimpse.  Looking down - I noticed a second morel growing right there!  Two morels right at the fire ring?  Incredible!

A walk around our camp to the other fire rings proved futile as the other fire rings were all in to frequent or recent use, but on the way back to our somewhat remote site - I found several morels growing right on the side of the driveway in the campground!  Walking around in the woods on the residential property of Peachgrowers Grove, I found several gorgeous puffballs as well.

As soon as we put up our gear, we headed off to stomp the woods before sunset - between the three of us, we found at least a couple pounds of morels.  Mostly small morels -  remember - they are the same color as the dirt:

I found a pretty healthy tree frog - and Keith uncovered a gorgeous salamander:

The next morning, we were up and stomping around the woods again - every time we thought we'd notice a pattern, we'd find mushrooms in another kind of spot.  Sometimes they were on the west face of a slope or pile of woodchips that had some fire damage and disturbed earth, sometimes they were just growing in the pine needles next to some trees - and lots of times they were growing right on the side of the paved road!  Here are some photos of morels in their natural spots and of our haul - we all got an average of 3lbs each:

The result of 3 the tramping in the woods of 3 people!

Where should you go look for morels?  They like pine trees and disturbed soil; any place that you find burn areas - whether a wild fire or a customary spot for burning brush & plant debris for fire management.  Some current reports are that the morels are happening but moving north and to higher elevations pretty quickly.  I have heard one report of a friend near Bear Valley who has pulled over 120 lbs already!  

Last August's burn in Yuba County interests me - I want to check on the elevations of those burned areas for a target in early June.  Failing that - Mt Shasta & Lassen may be good candidates for the second week of June.  Are you with me?

Spring Foraging - Miner's Lettuce!

On a 14 mi loop around Briones Reservoir, I saw a few mushrooms (a couple candy caps!) and observed piles and piles of Miner's lettuce.  Miner's lettuce is high in vitamin C - and it's pretty tasty.  This Miner's lettuce was unusually big - I'm more accustomed to seeing it around the size of a fifty-cent piece.

Jenn & the Giant Chanterelles

The fallen oak branches protected these beauties on the periphery of the woods. I often find nice little flushes by this tree - very large mushrooms that are firm and integral. The one in my right is a mere 18 oz to the 22 oz in my left. I am standing up straight - it's the location that is crooked!

Abandoned Chanterelles!

I came across this pile of chanterelles - abandoned in the woods - too late for me to salvage.  I also found a knife - and I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone would dump a whole pile of chanterelles like that.

Mushrooming - January 24 - Ladies Field Day!

Kathryn & Alexis joined me for a productive day of mushrooming in the Oakland Hills!  Kathryn is an avid forager but Alexis had never gone out before!



Kathryn was VERY happy!

Gorgeous view of Mt Diablo!

Happy mushrooming ladies!

More cow plop cultivated mushrooms!

Oyster mushroom tree!

Mushrooming - January 23

Gorgeous overcast, cloudy day of sprinkles - and my favorite view

Mushrooming - January 17

Something tiny growing on a cow plop:

A salamander under a mushroom (fire salamander?)

Oh - and lots and loads of chanterelles:

Not just a table, a bench and two chairs -

But the other table, too!

And some biggies!

Thanks to Cassia for documenting - she was quick enough to grab my camera while I was busy cleaning up!

Mushrooming - cleaning up!

The next morning - I still had a tub FULL of chanterelles

Some more biggies - they taste just the same!

A 14 oz chanterelle in a stainless steel bowl (sorry for the flash!)

Mushrooming - January 10

A few tiny blewets!

Some of the chanterelles have their own zip codes!

Some are in the bag -

But here are the biggies I found:

One with my hand for scale:

Red & pretty - but not edible!

Another monster chanterelle:

They just don't stop!

Round 2, same day, with Eric & Veronika.  When I told them about the flush I found - and that we could each pick as much as we could carry - Eric was skeptical.  "I don't like to pick an area clean - it's not good for the ecosystem!"  But when we got there -  he was surprised and even said "They don't let up!  It's  just like pulling weeds!"  I'm pretty sure this is his happy face here!

Fancy deformities - all ripply and flesh like...

Something we found on the way out:

Examining & recording:

Mushrooming - January 9

Hardly finding any blewets - this beat up old looking thing was all alone:

Loads of candy caps - they just seem to be everywhere! I picked 3# of candy cap!

 

Beautiful but not edible amanitas....

 

Gold!

 

The haul - well - what I kept, anyway:

Thirty pounds for a local chef: