Millennium - Spring Veggies Cooking Class

Just got home from Millennium for a spring veggies class with Samael7. We were assigned to the "fire" team. We spent all day making incredibly yummy food and eating it. I'll update this post separately about the food and recipes. Check out Albion Cooks blog posting on the class.

Wondering what to do with wine corks?

Send them to Yemm & Hart for recycling into cork flooring!

Jenn & the giant chanterelle

Jenn & the giant chanterelle
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

More chanterelles!

More chanterelles!
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

February 23 mushroom foraging outing.

Tomatoes are planted!

I just received 17 varieties of heirloom tomato seeds. The seedlings are all planted and germinating. I plan to make tomato paste, dried tomatoes and plenty of other tomato-y goodness. Some will be planted at the boyfriend's house and some at my house -- and I may bring some containers to other friends to see how the cold weather tolerant varieties do in San Francisco.

I'm sure I'll have lots of extra plants -- if you live in Oakland, add your comment and I'll keep you in mind after we start figuring out how many will survive and how many we can put in the ground.

	Moskovich-Tomato Seeds Early season ("extra early")
	Peacevine Cherry-Tomato Seeds Mid-season, high amino acid content, high Vitamin C content cherry tomato
	Super Snow White-Tomato Seeds Mid-season, very sweet, white ping pong ball size
	Wonder Light-Tomato Seeds Mid season, "plum lemon" w/mild sweet flavor (yellow catsup, anyone?)
	Amana Orange-Tomato Seeds Late season, "huge" beefsteak, fluted/irregular, 2# or more
	Aunt Ruby’s German Green-Tomato Seeds Mid-season, "lime jello" color - super fruity, slightly spicy
	Aunt Ruby's Yellow Cherry-Tomato Seeds Mid-season, Very productive, fruity-tart.
	Black Cherry-Tomato Seeds Early season, tall vigorous plant, sweet, complex, round black cherry tomato.
	Blondkopfchen-Tomato Seeds Mid-season. "Plant produces phenomenal clusters of 20-30 very-very-very tasty gold/yellow grape-sized (1/2") cherries. Put this in your mouth and see if you can keep from smiling."
	Brandywine, Red-Tomato Seeds Late season, 1-1 1/2#, pink/purple meaty fruit, good for canning.
	Debarao-Tomato Seeds Great paste tomato, mid-season
	Green Zebra-Tomato Seeds Developed in 1985 for Alice Waters/Chez Panisse - these are available at farmer's markets, WF, BB and are really yum.
	Hawaiian Pineapple-Tomato Seeds Late season. Large 1-1 1/2# beefsteak, sweet, slightly pineapple flavored - had to have these!
	Principe Borghese Mid-season, good for drying - supposed to be the most flavorful
	Yellow Ruffled Mid-season. Ruffled/indeterminate. Good for stuffing - and they photographed it on a Blue Willow plate!
	Paul Robeson Mid-season. Black beefsteak tomato, good for lower growing temps.
	Italian Tree Late season. These must be staked - the plant grows up to 15' tall and produces a lot of tomatoes - "enormous amounts of meaty, 1-2 pound, 4-5-inch, red tomatoes with superior sweet flavors." I think I'll have the most trouble with this one (wrt over production)
	Aker's West Virginia - BONUS from the TomatoFest Folks A family heirloom tomato of Craig Lehoullier's friend, Carl Aker of Pennsylvania. Originally from West Virginia. These organic tomato seeds produce a vigorous highly productive, regular leaf, heirloom tomato plant that yields an excellent set of large, 10 to 16-ounce, deep-red, slightly flattened tomatoes in clusters of 2. Fruits show little or no cracking and have a well balanced sweetness to acidity. Delicious, robust flavors.

GIANT Chanterelle

GIANT Chanterelle
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

Do you know how big my hands are? My hands are 7.5" long and about 4.5" wide. This mushroom is that much bigger than my hand. Click through for more great Chanterelles!

11# of Golden Chanterelles, cleaned

11# of Golden Chanterelles, cleaned
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

Millennium - Winter Mushrooms Cooking Class

COOKING CLASS AT MILLENNIUM: After two mushroom foraging trips, I finally made it to my first cooking class at Millennium. I was worried about being late but I was the first person to arrive! The private dining room was set up with a table, recipe packets and name tags. Everyone had a cook's jacket over her chair. There were 10 people plus Thomas and Allison (from Monday mushroom hunting), Aylene (from Friday mushroom hunting). We got a packet of recipes -- and the the group was split into two to work in 2s and 3s... in my case, my group was comprised of a married couple and a pair of friends so they worked together and Eric has me work on the main parts of the recipes myself. I ended up making the candycap brownie myself, as well as the entire "Soup X" and the Chanterelle Stroganoff. Here's a list of what was on the menu:

• Chanterelle Butter
• Black Chanterelle Pecan (or Walnut) Pate
• Button Mushrooms done right
• Pickled Clamshell and trumpet mushrooms
• Soup X
• Grilled Oyster Mushroom and Kale or Radicchio (or Endive Salad), Truffle Vinaigrette
• Chanterelle Stroganoff
• Candy Cap Blondies (or brownies if you mix the chocolate chips before the stuff cools and melt them)
• Truffled sorbet

The things I really would have wanted to do - I got to do! The soup was really fantastic -- we had a "team meeting" to discuss the direction suggested by Eric and then he tasked them with their button mushrooms and pickled mushrooms and took me to the pantry to collect ingredients for the soup.

Soup X

• 2-3 T olive oil
• 4 stalks of the Devil's Weed (aka celery - ok, it wasn't bad)
• 3-4 smallish (smaller than fist size) yukon gold potatoes, peeled & cubed
• 6-9 parsnips of many colors, peeled and sliced at an angle
• 1 red onion chopped
• 1# black trumpets, cleaned, triple rinsed and chopped
• 1 qt (give or take) of dark mushroom broth
• cumin, allspice, oregano
• 3 dried chiles, toasted, seeded and pulverized -- add half to the soup, reserve half
• pebble beans
• chestnuts
• garlic
• salt
• pepper

Toasted Pumpkin Seed pesto garnish:

• 2 c toasted pumpkin seeds
• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 3 T minced garlic
• pumpkin seed oil
• salt
• pepper

At first, it was peculiar being in the kitchen with so many people. That really threw me at first and made a mistake. When I mixed the ingredients from the double boiler with the dry ingredients for the Candycap blondies and threw in the chocolate chips before the liquids cooled, turning them into brownies (they were still edible). I was pretty disappointed and thought I ruined them and wanted to redo (I really do like blondies!). I think I would use less grapeseed/cocoa butter -- that would lighten them up a bit. I will start using parchment paper more often for those sorts of things -- it works miracles in getting stuff out of a pan.

We made the first several dishes for lunch -- the pate, chanterelle butter, mushrooms, soup and pickled mushrooms. Then we went back to make the stroganoff and the salad. Folks on my team prepped the salad and a biscuit-like crust to go on the stroganoff which I prepared. My stroganoff came out a lot better than the other group -- I actually got my onions carmelized and know how to cook with chanterelles. The other team used too many chanterelles and didn't get enough liquid out, and also did not start early enough or use a big enough pan to carmelize their onions properly. They made cracked black pepper papardelle which came out really amazing and yummy.

And I just have to say - the truffled sorbet and the blondies/brownies were to die for. I just thought I was going to explode from eating so much delicious food. It was utterly unfair that we should have so much yummy food and my friends should not have it.

Chanterelles and a little mud

Chanterelles and a little mud
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy

The haul from the group mushroom hunting trip for the Millennium cooking class with Eric Tucker. This is about 20# of mushrooms (and mud). (And bugs).

Eric & the giant chanterelles

Eric & the giant chanterelles
Originally uploaded by jennconspiracy