October is the best month to harvest Autumn’s wild mushrooms. I’ll start by saying that while some edible wild mushrooms are the most delicious treasures the forest has to offer, many are poisonous, hallucinogenic, can cause permanent damage and even death. Please don’t eat any mushroom found in the wild unless you know exactly what it is. I like Mushrooms Demystified as a reliable reference but it’s a big book so a small pocket guide is also nice to carry into the field. I also use my brother as a reference as he was the first to introduce me to Morels and Chanterelles.
This is my dad harvesting young King Boletes – stalky dense mushrooms with a toadstool shape and a solid surface under the cap instead of gills, often found partially hidden under pine needles. Look closely and you will see many mushrooms in this picture hidden under the pine needles. King Boletes have a wonderfully rich mushroom flavor. I enjoyed just a sample sautéed in butter and dried the rest to use later.
These are chanterelles my brother gave me from his mushroom hunt in a different forest. Chanterelles have a mild flavor and great texture.
Chanterelles in Wine and Butter
Sauté your cleaned and quartered chanterelles in butter with bacon and shallots until golden brown. Add a good splash of white wine, diced garlic, fresh thyme and salt then cook for a few minutes more to evaporate the alcohol. Toss with pasta and enjoy.
Important note – do not consume wild mushrooms with alcohol. Even safe mushrooms can cause a bad reaction when mixed with alcohol and in the unfortunate event that you fail to correctly identify the mushrooms and they turn out to be poisonous, you will get very sick but alcohol will accelerate and complicate your bad condition, making it even more dangerous.
How’s that for a scary recipe! In all honesty, if you learn how to safely pick wild mushrooms, you will find great rewards!
In addition to gardening, I’m a big fan of foraging and gathering food grown in the wild. Last weekend, at the end of an unproductive fishing trip, my dad and I were able to redeem ourselves with a different sort of catch. Instead of coming home with a fresh steelhead or salmon as we hoped, we gathered wild elderberries and mushrooms from the forest – equally as rewarding to me.
I steam juiced the berries and made them into jelly.
In an effort to waste nothing, I combined the remaining elderberry pulp with some pears from my neighbor’s tree and some johnathan apples and crab apples from my dad’s farm. The elderberries aren’t much to look at at this point but they’re still far too valuable to end up in the compost.
I pureed everything in the blender with a little stevia for sweetness as the elderberries are TART, then I spread the mixture about 1/3 inch thick on an oiled cookie sheet.
I left it in a 200 degree oven over night and in the morning we had a beautiful batch of elderberry leather.
It’s a very rustic fruit leather but the seeds are delicate like those of raspberries. Pears are great in most fruit leather recipes as they always create a great leathery texture.
I came across an interesting article yesterday that not only makes a great argument against wasting food but also ilustrates another reason to grow your own.
The neglect in my garden began a few days ago when I discovered the blackberries were ripe. I dropped everything and began filling buckets as fast as I could. Today I’ve made all of those blackberries into enough jam to last through the winter and then some. While I was at it, I finally got into the garden to pick and pickle all of the green and purple beans that had been staring at me each day as I walked by, trying to ignore them with a tub of berries in my arms. I think, at this point, I’ve canned all that I can. Mother Nature knew I would be canning today so she gave me some cool cloudy weather to work in. Nothing is worse than standing over a hot water canner, in a hot steamy kitchen, on a hot summer day.
Royal Purple Bush Bean is a variety my mother has grown for years. They are as delicious as they are stunning and they turn solid green when they’re cooked.
The green variety is Maxibel – French Filet Bush Bean. Don’t tell my mom but I think this one is even better and it produces like the energizer bunny. I can’t keep up with the harvest.
Again, I’m following the preserving recipes in Stocking up on the bookshelf.
When the sun finally came out, I took a walk to visit a garden I’m looking after for some friends of mine while they’re out of town. Gave it one last good watering before they come home tomorrow and then I headed back home through our residential streets lined with fruit trees and veggie patches. It’s a bit like heaven. I even came across a tree already scattering the ground with these yellow leaves.
It reminded me that fall will be on us soon and I better get started on those fall crops I keep meaning to plant.
Improvising on FoodWishes.com’s recipe for Cherry Clafoutis brought me to create this lovely way to enjoy fresh wild blackberries.
It reminds me of a breakfast dish my mother used to make when we were kids. Clafoutis begins with a batter much like that of crepes but it puffs up in a casserole filled with fruit, then collapses into a dense crepe like custard as it cools. I LOVE finding deliciouse new ways to use our city’s bountiful wild blackberries.
Here’s the more traditional recipe that inspired this creation.
