October is A Month of Wild Abundance

Gem-Studded Puffballs

October is amazing when it comes to finding wild food!

The forests are full of delicious mushrooms including giant puffballs, pear shaped puffballs, gem studded puffballs, chicken mushrooms, hen of the woods, aborted entaloma (shrimp of the woods), blewits, honey mushrooms, lion's mane, ... what else am I forgetting? Parasol mushrooms, horse mushrooms, at a mushroom club walk on October 15 even chanterelles were found! Abundant!!

Just some of the mushrooms found at the Western PA Mushroom Club's walk on Saturday October 15

 Mushrooms aside (though it is difficult to put mushrooms aside - they are so delicious!), there are other delights found in October as well.

You might have noticed these gorgeous sunflowers blooming along roadsides or in fields and forests.

They are the native American sunchoke (aka Jerusalem artichokes.) Sunchoke (Helianthus tuberosus) are in the sunflower family, though this species is not known as much for its seeds as for its underground tubers (hence the species name tuberosus.)

sunchoke tubers

The tubers are knobby and funny looking, but they are delicious, abundant, easy to dig, and nutritious. They can be eaten raw, steamed, boiled, roasted, fried, simmered. Ways to make them include: roast them alongside other root vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and carrots. Steam and mash like mashed potatoes. Saute with mushrooms (maybe some aborted entolomas or other wild mushroom). Make into a delicious soup (recipe will be posted tomorrow.)

black walnut in its green husk

Other October treats include nuts such as black walnut and hickory nuts. Now is definitely the time to get out and collect those, as well as acorns, which are falling off trees in droves this time of year. Unlike black walnut and hickory, most acorns need to be processed first to remove the bitter tanins. In the past I have boiled shelled acorns in repeated changes of water, but this year I am going to try a method described in Mike Krebill's new book Scout's Guide to Edible Wild Plants (due out November, 2016 and on which I was technical editor), where he blends the acorn meet in the blender, and then rinses the pulp until the bitterness is gone. I will report back in more detail once I actually try it.

kousa dogwood

You may have noticed these red balls hanging from some of your dogwood trees: this is Kousa dogwood, and the inside of this red fruit is soft, creamy and delicious.

Foraging is fun, and especially so in October! I hope you are able to get out there and find an abundance of wild food!

~ Melissa

Hot Wings from Chicken Mushrooms

Chicken Mushroom, Laetiporus sulfureous

Chicken wings were a big part of my teenage years. Even though Syracuse, New York is not Buffalo, my friends and I saw our fair share of hot chicken wings in the 80's.

I even worked at a fast food chicken joint in the 80's and learned the secret hot sauce recipe:

• Hot: 3 parts Tabasco to 1 part butter*

• Medium: equal parts Tabasco and butter

• Mild: 1 part Tabasco to 3 parts butter

*now of course Earth Balance or another vegan butter replacement can be substituted to make it vegan

But all that was long lost since going vegetarian in 1987. And though I did not miss the stringy veiny chicken wings, that sauce....oh, that sauce.

Then I started finding vegetarian "chicken" wings made from seitan (wheat gluten) and I was so happy! They were delicious and all I could hope for. Except for the wheat. Since being gluten-free I've had to give up those and THOSE I dearly miss.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier, but suddenly this was the year that I thought to use chicken mushroom and try to make those wings. Maybe because I never actually made wings or seitan "wings" myself before (aside from lowering wings into the fryer at the fast food place, then tossing them in a bucket to shake on the sauce. I've never deep fried anything in my own home.)

"You can use chicken mushroom in any recipe that calls for chicken," I've seen written and heard said.

And so....

Sliced Chicken Mushroom made into Hot Wings, with celery

Wonderful! Heavenly! Spicy nirvana!

I simply sliced and sauteed the chicken mushroom in olive oil (adding salt), then melted some butter (you can use a vegan butter substitute such as Earth Balance) and mixed in an equal amount of hot sauce (alas, we had no Tobasco at home so I used Frank's hot sauce), and tossed the mushrooms in the hot sauce at the end of cooking.

This is definitely a keeper.

~ Melissa

Fall Mushrooms are Filling the Woods (and our Table!)

Fall is such an excellent time for mushroom hunting! The woods are full of blooms of delicious wild mushrooms. Yesterday and today we went out hiking and found a plethora of mushrooms.

Yesterday's haul:

Clockwise from the top: 

Hen of the woods, Lion's Mane, chicken mushroom, gem studded puffballs, pear shaped puffballs.

Today's haul:

Chicken Mushrooms and Aborted (or Abortive) entoloma

Yesterday we had fun thinly slicing and cooking up each mushroom one by one, to sample them all. We cooked them all the same: saute in olive oil and butter, with salt and pepper. 

lion's mane - Hericium erinaceous

lion's mane beginning to brown

gem studded puffballs - Lycoperdon perlatum

chicken mushroom - Laetiporus sulfureus

hen of the woods/maitake (Grifola frondosa)

They were all so different and delicious, though the puffball wasn't universally loved because of its lack of texture. However, cutting them thin and cooking until crispy made them very appetizing to me!

Today with our much larger haul of chicken mushrooms, I made "Hot Chicken Wings" (post to come), which is basically thinly slicing and sauteing the mushrooms in butter/oil (and steaming a bit with water, making sure they are cooked through.) When done cooking I added melted butter and hot sauce in equal amounts for spicy chicken mushroom "wings."

These we had on corn tortillas over mashed potatoes, topped with lettuce and tomato. Very delicious.

We will enjoy the Abortive entoloma (Entoloma abortivum) tomorrow!

Happy Fall!!

~ Melissa