Chanterelles!

Just picked up 3.5 pounds of freshly-picked chanterelle mushrooms. Yay, Thanksgiving feasting!

Color Overload: Seattle Farmer's Market

A few weeks ago, I headed north to Seattle to attend a lovely wedding and catch up with an old college buddy.  The weekend was just fantastic, as was the University District Saturday Farmer's Market!  I wandered through the stalls, oggling at the absolutely beautiful produce and wishing I had a stove.  I was also struck by the abundance of wild and cultured mushrooms.  As I am still reeling in the tomatoes, we have not yet reached mushrooming season down here.  But the Pacific Northwest, with its abundant rainfall, is swimming in gorgeous mushrooms.  I am eagerly looking forward to our mushroom season and many more meals of mushrooms on toast.

There was also a great selection of cheeses, including a stand from one of my favorite creameries: Willapa Hills from Doty, Washington.  I first found them at the California Artisan Cheese Festival in 2010.  Upon arriving in Seattle I picked up some of their Two Faced Blue, a delicious sheep/cow blue cheese.  At the market I also got to try the Pluvius, a cow's milk table cheese that reminded me of a slightly milder feta that I could barely keep my hands off.  I left with some of that, too.  Yum.

Now, please enjoy the colors and textures of Seattle's U District Saturday Farmer's Market!

 

 

Spoiled Rotten

When I started my new job last September (stupid economy) I asked about all the appropriate things- what will my role be, what are the projects like, how much are you gonna pay me. You know, the usual. It never occurred to me ask about the intangibles.

Lucky for me I liked the job for what it was, because it comes with some spectacular intangibles. Namely: mushrooms!

My new boss owns a ranch north of San Francisco in prime mushroom foraging territory. The other day he returned from the weekend with a veritable cornucopia of wild mushrooms. Chanterelles, winter chanterelles, black trumpets, hedgehogs, and candy caps. And just like that he put this basket overflowing with mushrooms on a low filing cabinet and said “Help yourselves.” Woohoo!

My colleagues and I are officially spoiled rotten.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all of them! I'm told that these mushroom varieties freeze well and the black trumpets also dry well, too. That’s great because I wouldn’t want any of this bounty to go to waste.

I decided to start with my favorite standby mushroom recipe: Mushrooms on Toast from Canal House Cooking. This recipe is very forgiving and works well for all types of mushrooms. I once doubled it for a tapas party and brought the cooked mushrooms (a mix of button, crimini and shiitake) in a bowl, a platter of sliced baguette and a little bowl of chopped parsley. We each assembled individual little bites of mushroomy goodness and then went back for seconds.

Mushrooms on Toast

from Canal House Cooking, volume 2.

Serves 2-4 (depending on how much you like mushrooms)

3 Tbl butter

1 Tbl olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 lb cleaned halved mushrooms

salt and pepper

1/4 cup heavy cream

bread for toast

handful chopped parsley leaves

Melt the butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and mushrooms, season with S & P, and saute until the mushrooms have softened, ~5-10 minutes [I rarely time mushrooms- I just saute until they release their juices and start to turn golden]. Pour in the cream and stir; continue cooking for a few minutes more until the cream has thickened slightly. Serve over slices of buttered toast, topped with parsley.

Enjoy! Meanwhile, please drop a note in the comments if you know a great preparation for wild (or regular) mushrooms.

Disclaimer: He’s been doing this for years and knows his mushrooms. Don’t forage without a guide- some mushrooms WILL kill you. You’ve been warned.