Recipe - Hen of the Woods Chili

Today I took a lovely walk in the woods and found a basketful of edible mushrooms. I will talk about what we found (and then sampled) tomorrow, but today I wanted to share a delicious recipe for Hen-of-the-Woods (Maitake) Chili.

Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa), also known as Maitake, is a delicious edible and medicinal fall mushroom. It can sometimes be hard to spot (can you see it in the picture above?) They are often found at the base of oak trees.

Today I found a couple of small ones which normally I would have left to grow, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back (or if I could find my way back to where I was in the middle of the woods!) so I went ahead and picked them.

Even though the ones I found were small, they were certainly enough to make chili out of! Here is one of my favorite chili recipes using this mushroom. Enjoy!

Hen of the Woods Chili (Vegan and Gluten-free)

Ingredients:

• 2 - 4 cups Hen of the Woods Mushroom, chopped into bite sized pieces 
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 1 chopped jalapeno pepper (or bell pepper if you don't like spice, or omit)
• 2 chopped celery stalks
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can black beans (or use your own soaked and cooked beans!! Any kind you like for chili. I was being lazy.)
• a bunch of tomatoes blended in your high powered blender, (or a can/jar of tomato sauce) - we still have lots of tomatoes from our garden! So I've been blending them in the Vitamix and cooking them down into sauce or putting in soups. With the vitamix you don't need to worry about peeling them :-D
• 1 - 2 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp dried basil
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• salt, pepper
• olive oil, for sauteing
• 3 - 4 cups water (or broth...I just used water.)

Method: 

In a big pot: saute the hen of the woods, onions, garlic, pepper and celery in olive oil. Add some salt while cooking. I actually cooked the hen a bit first so it could release its water and cook a bit. 

Next add the spices (chili powder, cumin and basil).

Once the onions are cooked and translucent add beans, blended tomatoes, and water.

Let it simmer to blend the flavors. Adjust salt, pepper and seasonings to taste. Let cook at least 45 minutes to an hour. 

It's often even better the next day.

I served it over brown rice with a little hot sauce.

Enjoy!! :-)