Lentil Soup

I had two bags of lentils sitting in my pantry, so I looked up recipes to cook them and found this one on the ABC news website.  I followed the directions and set it to cook on low overnight.  Before going to bed, I was a bit apprehensive because it was bland and watery, but in the morning the whole house smelled of delicious soup.  The lentils take time to absorb the water and release their flavor.  

One change I did make to the recipe was that I added a can of spicy V-8 tomato juice.  I'm not sure what difference it made.  Regardless, it was excellent.

Lentil Soup By Mary Sperling of Newberg, Ore.

Ingredients: 

 3 carrots, chopped 
 3 ribs of celery, chopped 
 1 onion, chopped 
 3 cloves garlic, pressed 
 8 cups water or vegetable broth 
 2 cups lentils, rinsed 
 1 tsp. dried thyme 

Directions Put all of these ingredients in the slow cooker. Set it on low if you are leaving it all day, high if you are starting it around lunchtime.

ABC

Lentil Soup by Mary Sperling of Newberg, Ore.

About 10 minutes before you are ready to serve the soup, add: 
 1 ½ tsp. balsamic vinegar 
 2 tsp. salt 
 1 tsp. ground pepper 
 1 bunch of kale, washed and chopped
 

May-Catching the tail of the Morels

It all began with the Morel.  My friend Cory had been trying to get me to go Morel mushroom hunting with him for years and I had stubbornly said no because I don't like store bought, button mushrooms (the taste or the texture) and so I "knew" I wouldn't like Morels.  After finally trying one fried in butter, I had to call him up and apologize.

Morel mushrooms have a wonderful earthy and meaty taste to them.  They are fun to cook and they are also fun to find.

Unfortunately, by the time I realized my error, the season was ending.  There is a short window for morels and we were hunting them in May, which is definitely at the end.  We got a few good hunts in, but we found a lot of mushrooms that were more mush than shroom.

Cory swore me to secrecy as to where we went to hunt for these, but I can say that they liked to be around the base of low shrubs and required a lot of crawling around and careful looking.  May is also tick season and that was a bit unpleasant...

In terms of cooking them, we began by splitting them in half and cleaning out any bugs or dirt inside.  Then, I soaked them in salt water overnight to be sure that any tiny bugs were removed.  After that, I dried them on paper towels in the refrigerator.  Not enough to actually dry them, but just enough that they weren't going to rot.  After that, I seemed to have about 3-4 days to cook them before they turned color and weren't the same.

This year, I used two recipes:

1. Simply fried.  I dipped them in egg white, then flour, then fried them in butter with garlic.  They were delicious this way.

2.  I followed a recipe from The Great Morel website, pictured below:

I included the photo so that you can find the recipe amongst the many listed on the website.

I followed it as closely as I could.  It was amazing.  I sometimes getting full of myself as a cook, but I can honestly say that this was the best thing I have ever made.

ALSO, this recipe solves the too many morel problem because the morel sauce can be frozen.  Morels don't keep long and are hard to store (although one recipe on The Great Morel did suggest dehydrating them and then putting them in like chewing tobacco!).  I made extra sauce using this recipe and then froze it to be put on steaks at a later date.  I have tried it since (over fried chicken) and it was excellent.

September - Staghorn and Smooth Sumac

Around my house there are many Sumacs, both the Staghorn (hairy) and Smooth (no hairs) variety, and I am used to seeing their signature red seed stems.  Turns out, these produce malic acid and you can make tea, a pink lemonade-like drink, or pie from them.

In my first attempt, I followed the directions here, but my sumac concentrate was a bit on the weak side, so I just added a bit of water and sugar and drank it as Sumac-ade.  It has a wonderful pink color and the taste is like pink lemonade with a hint of tea.  Amanda says it has a more natural taste than pink lemonade and I'd agree. Very delicious.

This is definitely my best find of September so far.

I'm going to pick more and dry them for tea in the winter.   I'll update after I see how that goes.

September - Puffballs

We were walking along Spring Creek with our dog, Cinci, when Amanda pointed down the hill and asked, "What are those things?"

They were 4-5 huge puffball mushrooms, Calvatia Gigantea, growing in the flood plain area beside the stream.  Each one was at least as big as a softball and the biggest (pictured below) was as big as a basketball.

Mushrooms are how I really began being interested in wild edibles, so I was pretty excited.

We cut it and brought it home.  Then we researched online about the dangers of this variety.  Turns out puffball mushrooms are pretty safe (though with mushrooms, you can't be too safe).  They are sometimes confused with Amanitas, which can kill, but the Amanitas only resemble puffballs when they are immature and you can cut open a puffball to see if there is signs of a developing stem/gills.  If there are, DO NOT EAT IT. If it is all white flesh, it's probably a puffball.

So the first thing I did was cut it open to check for the white flesh...and I hit something solid.  Amanda was stressed about the whole endeavor, worried that it might be an Amanitas, so I didn't want to alarm her, but I was a bit freaked out.  The knife clinked against something and stopped dead.  Then the mushroom split open and...

There was a rock inside.  The mushroom had grown around it.

After that, I cut away the outer layer and any sections that weren't completely white (dirt).  I then cut it into thin steaks (less than an inch thick) and fried them in garlic and olive oil.

After they cooked for a few minutes on each side,

I switched them to the grill.

They looked amazing.  However, the taste was less than I hoped.

If you like a slight mushroomy flavor and the texture of mushrooms (I don't really), these might be great for you.  I couldn't get around the texture.  Too bad too because I could have eaten several meals off of just the one I brought home.

Any thoughts or advice would be well appreciated.  For now, I'm just saying that I don't like puffball mushrooms.  However, I might be willing to try again with a different recipe, maybe a puffball parmesan over pasta...