Puffball Recipe - Puffball Piccata

Milkweed capers

To keep our 6 year old daughter's interest in mushroom hunting for hours on each Sunday, Robert has devised an incentive program she can't resist: money for mushrooms. For each mushroom she finds she gets a quarter. Her proximity to the ground and her natural curiosity gives her an edge that we don't have. This past weekend while picking nectarines at the local orchard, Gillian spied a large purple-spored puffball (Calvatia cyanthiformus) under a nearby pear tree, and promptly collected her bounty. We took it home, read up on ID information, and sliced it thinly to make Puffball Piccata, using the capers we made from milkweed flower bud capers earlier this summer. The texture of each puffball filet was tender with a bit of a crispy exterior, and the sauce was tart and briny.  The puffball we found was about 4" wide, so your servings will be based on the size of the puffball. I got about 10 filets from the mushroom, each slice was 1/4" thick. We'll be happily looking for more puffballs to eat this one again.

Puffball Piccata                          Makes about 4 servings

about 10 puffball filets
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
3 T olive oil
3 T butter
2 T minced sweet onion
1/2 c. white wine
3/4 c. vegetable broth
3 T capers
2 T lemon juice
3 T chopped parsley
lemon slices

1. You need to moisten the puffball filets, I used a water bottle to spray them lightly.
2. Mix the flour with the salt and pepper in a flat dish. Dredge the moistened puffball filets in the flour to coat.
3. Heat the oil in a sautée pan until hot, then add the butter. Quickly fry the filets in the hot fat until lightly browned, about 2 minutes on each side. Place the cooked puffball filets on a covered platter.
4. Using the leftover hot oil and butter in the pan, sautée the minced onion until translucent. Add the white wine and simmer until reduced by half.
5. Add the vegetable broth, capers, and lemon juice and continue to simmer until the sauce thickens slightly. Remove from the heat and adjust the salt and acidity with lemon juice if needed. Add the chopped parsley and pour the sauce over the reserved puffball filets.

Acorn Recipe - Acorn Cupcakes with Wild Grape Cream Cheese Frosting

We made this early this spring, and brought them as a "taste" to a wild weed walk we took with Blanche Derby in Massachusetts. She gives samples of prepared dishes along with her tours to really show people what they can do with the wild food they just learned about in the field. We made something completely out of season for spring, but we used wild food we had gathered and preserved last autumn.

Robert cold leaches the white oak acorns (Quercus alba) by placing the shelled nutmeat in a gallon jar of cold water and letting it sit overnight. In the morning, he pours off the now-amber water which has leached out some tannins from the nuts. He will repeat this process until the water no longer stains tea-colored. This way we save energy by not using the stove, and hopefully retain more nutrients by not boiling the nutmeats. The next step is to dry the nuts in the dehydrator, on the dashboard in the car if it is warm and sunny outside, or in a low oven. Finally he grinds the dry nuts in a coffee grinder into a flour. We keep the flour in the freezer to prevent it from going rancid. I cobbled together a few different recipes that usually call for walnut or almond flour for the cupcake.

The wild grape (Vitus species) jam was also produced last autumn from various species of wild grapes that we find growing along field edges and near water. It is the tastiest jam we make, along with being the most popular. I say it is an adult grape jam, although there is no alcohol involved. The flavor is so much more intense than the stuff you get at the store, and the flavor improves with age, like wine. The jam was added to a softened cream cheese and butter mixture, along with a bit more confectioner's sugar to make the frosting, and I also hollowed out the cupcakes and added a dollop of straight jam for an intense flavor burst.

This recipe is available in our book, available Spring 2016.

http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239108626260&

Foraging Report 08/31/2011

One might think there would be large amounts of harvesting going on right now, but there is not. Our cold, late spring and very dry, hot summer has messed up our usual schedule of picking and preserving. The recent abundant rains have provided us with a large distraction of mushrooms to hunt and learn about, but we have missed several fruits. One discussion thread I have been following with interest on Yahoo groups, Forage Ahead, is about the poor autumn harvest as a harbinger of a hard winter to come. It seems that many fruits were damaged by bad weather in spring and drought in summer, and nuts are absent or empty in several parts of the US. Animals have been observed nesting earlier, and deer are already fat and losing the velvet from their antlers. Some birds and insects are already absent. Is the fauna aware of a problem with the flora for the season?

elderberries from last year

We somehow completely missed the elderberry (Sambucus nigra) and wild black cherry (Prunus serotina) harvests. We gathered flowers of the elderberry to eat, but never saw any berries. I can find very few black cherries, maybe a handful for an entire tree. The birds seem to have gotten most of them, and the stems are all bare. We have been out searching for some beach plums (Prunus maritima) at the shore, but have seen very few. It also seems to be an off year for white oak acorns (Quercus alba), the less tannic nuts they produce are what we like to gather.

Glasswort

Some of our recent foraging successes have been with glasswort (genus Salcornia), also known as sea beans or samphire. Robert has found them on several occasions, and we have brought them home for pickles, and he is trying to lacto-ferment some with cabbage. They are quite salty, so a little goes a long way in a recipe. This late in the season, they can be tough and only the very tips are tender enough to eat. They compliment a salad or dish with a nice, salty crunch when used raw.

Spicebush berries

Black walnuts

Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is producing berries, although they are not red yet. We are trying to make an extract with the leaves, twigs and grain alcohol. It is strong and deep green, but I think it may be too alcoholic and not spicy enough. We'll wait for the berries to ripen, as they are the spiciest part of the plant. Robert may end up adding it to his black walnut (Juglans nigra) liqueur that he made with the green hulls for a more herbal taste. One good thing to come from the recent hurricane is that most of the black walnuts were blown from the tree next door already, making it easy to gather a few bucketfuls.

Surf clam

Another timely success as a result of the same hurricane was our windfall of surf clams (Spisula solidissima). We went back to Horseneck Beach in Massachusetts and came home with a 5 gallon bucket full of the 5" wide clams in mere minutes. The beach was littered with them, freshly tossed up by the high surf. After a quick rinse and freshwater purge, I cooked them up, cleaned them out, and made some delicious clam chowder. I ended up freezing another pint of the chopped meat and about a quart of the clam juice for future use.


Our upcoming days will be filled with preparations for our own letterboxing party, Foraging for Letterboxes, in mid-September. We are keeping our eyes open for grapes, apples, nuts, and more mushrooms. We can still gather rosehips and look forward to a second flush from some of the greens like lamb's quarters and dandelion.

Our Long Letterboxing Weekend in Maine



Thomas Point Beach stage

August 10-14 found us in Maine and surrounding areas for a letterboxing gathering. This was our second year, and we finally are well equipped to camp, with a machete, hammocks, a hammock mosquito net, tent, home-made tripod, bogracs (a Hungarian pot for cooking over the campfire), and excitement. We were located at Thomas Point Beach in Brunswick for most of our time, with some letterboxing in Topsham, Freeport, and Orr's Island.  The event was held by Mudflinginfools, a hopefully annual gathering of insane letterboxers and their talents and personalities. The site letterboxes were fantastic, getting us to visit our fellow campers and their sites. The theme was Dream Vacation Spots: Tropical, Foreign, and U.S. We carved Tahiti, Ireland, and Alaska for our site.





Maine is a new environment for us to explore. We love that letterboxing takes us to places most people would not find, including preserves and nature trails throughout the area. On one of the hikes to find The Lights By the Night in Harpswell, we came across many mushrooms on this trail, along with a bonus of ripe and delicious huckleberries (genus Vaccinium) at the end of the penninsula. We picked several handfuls, and ate them on the spot, sweet and a bit tart, crunchy with their large seeds, or technically nutlets, it was a quick and simple snack.



Wintergreen

Driving to Orr's Island, we noticed the abundance of red chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) trees and crabapples lining the roadways. We picked a few branches of cherries and some small apples, making a cooked compote for our morning oatmeal back at camp. Gillian loves the tart and astringent cherries, I wish we had planned ahead and brought some buckets! While hiking in Topsham for the wonderful series Nautical in Nature, we disturbed a trio of female pheasant. We also came across thick carpets of wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) and partidgeberry (Mitchella repens), and dense thickets of blackberries (Rubus discolor), with a few raspberries mixed in. These we brought back to eat with the next morning's granola.

Meadow mushroom spore print

At Thomas Point Beach, the foraging was great. Robert dug for steamers two days in a row in the tidal mud, providing an appetizer to grilled dinners. We also came across more chokecherries, blackberries, and meadow mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) . Robert recognized these as a variety that is commonly gathered in Hungary. We picked a few, very young with still-pink gills, from the lawn, spore printed them for verification, and skewered them over the fire for dinner. There were several available due to the recent rains, and we obseved them is different stages of growth over the 5 days.

Painted suillus

Another mushroom we came across was the painted suillus (Suillus pictus). We found several along a trail, with their distinctive veil, yellow pores,and red cap. We brought several specimens back to camp to spore print them, and the results were brown. Robert sautéed them up and ate them as an appetizer while I chowed down on the steamer clams. Gillian had a great time playing with the multitude of children, laying trails with dried cattail seed-heads and blowing bubbles. We love to see our fellow letterboxers and their families, and spend time outdoors. Here's to next year!

Mushrooms Identified - Oyster, Cinnabar Chanterelle, Sulfur Shelf Chicken Mushroom

Here is a trio of lovely, edible mushrooms we have found and happily consumed. We consulted several books and again had some guidance from the CVMS on the Cinnabar chanterelles and oyster mushrooms. The photos of the sulfur shelf were taken last autumn, and that mushroom was eaten in several dishes. Robert's main interest is the edible mushrooms, and I am finding all the mushrooms fascinating to learn about.

Pleurotus ostreatus is known as the oyster mushroom. Robert found several clusters growing from a black birch tree trunk in Norwich. It mostly grows from dead deciduous trees throughout North America, often all year under favorable conditions. The oysters that grow in summer tend to be pure white, while those that grow in autumn are more grey or light brown. The caps are 2"-8" wide when mature, semi-circular or elongated. A stalk may or may not be present, and the gills will descend the stalk. The spore print we took was light, white or maybe very light lilac. Oysters are a choice edible. Robert sautéed some with salt and pepper to eat. I oven roasted the rest and topped a pizza. The mushrooms he found were very young, so there were very few bugs present that we simply washed away.

Cantharellus cinnabarinus is a brightly colored, small mushroom known as the cinnabar chanterelle. We have come across these mushrooms in varying numbers at every location in Connecticut we have hiked. They grow on the ground, often in beds of moss, and are common in eastern North America. They can be found from late June through October. The caps can be 1/2"-2" wide, slightly convex, with a smooth, dry, and bright red-orange top. The gills are lighter colored, and the whole mushroom fades to pink with age. The stalk is solid and usually curved. The spore print we took was light pink. Cinnabar chanterelles are edible, and we sautéed up a bunch to eat, with good results. Each mushroom may be small, but there are often great numbers of them to be found in an area. We also accidentally dried a few, and they seem to hold up well.

Coconut and sulphur shelf soup with lamb's quarters

Laetiporus sulphureus is one of our favorite edible mushrooms, and it is known as a sulfur shelf, or chicken mushroom, for it's texture and similarity of taste to chicken. Sulfur shelf mushrooms grow on dead logs or stumps, and is common in North America. It is found between May and November, and does not require rain to stimulate it's growth, as it is growing from a tree. Sulfur shelf mushrooms grow as clusters of overlapping orange-yellow caps 2"-12" wide and fan shaped. The underside has pores, and is often yellow. When young, the color can range from bright orange to yellow and the caps are very wet and heavy. As the caps age, the color fades and they caps dry out. The spore print is white. When young, most of the mushroom can be gathered and chopped to use in dishes like chicken. Even on an older specimen, the very edges of the caps is often tender enough to eat. We chopped and froze an enormous mushroom we found last autumn, and still use to cook a pot pie or soup. Recipes for pot pie and stuffed bread can be found on this blog.

Fried chicken mushroom with onion strings

"Chicken" pot pie with ramps greens

Milkweed Recipe - Stuffed Milkweed Pods

This dish makes a fantastic tray of appetizers, or can be baked in a sauce for more of a dinner dish. Robert does not eat meat, so I made half with bacon and half without. If you wanted, you could fill the milkweed pods with a pastry bag for neater results.

For best results, I use 1 1/2"-2" long pods from common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). I begin the recipe by boiling the washed milkweed pods for 5 minutes. As they boil, some will pop open, and that is fine. Shock the pods in ice water to stop the cooking process and cool them down quickly for easier handling. There is a natural seam running along the length of each pod where it will want to split. Split open the pod and pull out the immature seeds and silk. I spoon the filling in, until the pods are full. Finally, I roll the cream cheese filling exposed in the seam in panko bread crumbs. I serve these warm from the oven.

Stuffed Milkweed Pods              makes 36-40

1 8oz. block of cream cheese, softened
2 T diced red onion
1 jalapeno, diced
salt and pepper
36-40 milkweed pods, boiled and split
panko bread crumbs

optional: 3 T diced, cooked bacon

1. Heat oven to 375°F.
2. Place the softened cream cheese in a bowl and with a heavy wooden spoon, mix in the diced onion, jalapeno, optional bacon, and salt and pepper.
3. Remove the immature seeds and silk from the boiled milkweed pods, and spoon in about 2 tsp. of cream cheese filling, until the pod is full.
4. Roll the exposed seam of cream cheese in panko bread crumbs and place seam side up on a parchment lined sheetpan.
5. Bake the stuffed pods for 15-20 minutes, until the crumbs are browned. Serve warm.

Mushrooms Identified - Scaly Vase Chanterelle, Berkeley's Polypore, Old Man of the Woods

Here are some mushrooms we have identified through many guidebooks and with the generous knowledge of Connecticut Valley Mycological Society. We see so many mushrooms that are difficult to identify on our own, so we joined the CVMS to learn techniques and proper ways to gather, identify, and possibly consume wild mushrooms. Robert has photographed several mushrooms, and we try to take spore prints for further confirmation.

Here is a partial list of the books we use:

Mushrooms of Northeast North America: Midwest to New England by George Barron
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms
Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field to Kitchen Guide by David W. Fischer
Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora

Scaly Vase Chanterelle cluster

Young scaly vase chanterelles

Gomphus floccosus is also known as Wooly Chanterelle, or Scaly Vase Chanterelle. We came across a small group of them at the Salmon River State Forest. It is a funnel-shaped mushroom that tends to grow on the ground in coniferous or mixed coniferous and deciduous forests throughout North America. It fruits from early summer through midfall, and we found it in mid-July. The top is 2"-6" wide, orange fading to yellow-orange, and depressed but soon becoming hollow and sunken like a funnel. The top also has cottony or woolly scales. The underside is creamy-colored and is wrinkled or veined all along the stalk. The flesh is white and fibrous. Spore print is ochre, but we did not gather or print this mushroom. It's edibility is questionable, with many reports of nausea and abdominal pain, so we will avoid eating it.

Gillian holding the Berkeley's polypore

Berkeley's underside and white spores

Bondarzewia berkeleyi is commonly known as Berkeley's polypore. We found this one growing from some tree roots in Salem, CT. It grows in the Northern US and Canada, to Louisiana and Texas from July to October. It has the appearance of several overlapping creamy-white to grey fans growing from a single base. When very young, it looks like white fingers, but specimens can get very large, up to 3 feet across. The undersides of the caps is white with circular to angular pores. The spore print we took was white. It toughens and becomes bitter with age, so we trimmed the outer 1/2" from the edges for a meal. Edibility is based upon the age of the mushroom.

Old Man of the Woods, underside

Cut, staining to red

Strobilomyces floccopus is known as Old Man of the Woods for it's shaggy, unkept appearance. We found a specimen in Groton, CT and saw several more that had been found at Salmon River SF. It grows on the ground in mixed hardwood and coniferous forests from July to October. The cushion-shaped cap is 1"-6" across and is covered with dry, shaggy scales. The underside of the cap is white or grey, becoming darker with age, with large pores and tubes. The flesh is white, but slowly stains red then black when cut. The spore print we took was black. Our mushroom was a bit old, so we did not try it. Younger specimens are edible, although not particularly desirable.

Old Man of the Woods topside and spore print