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

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!! :-)

The Hunt For Wild Mushrooms

This article first appeared in the East End Food Cooperator in August, 2012. I've added the pictures below.

The Hunt for Wild Mushrooms
by Melissa Sokulski

Morels, early spring

Mushrooms are an interesting entity: neither plant nor animal, fungi are their own kingdom and upon close examination actually have more in common with animals than plants. Their cell walls contain chitin, found in shells of crabs and exoskeletons of insects but absent from plants. Plants make their own food but like animals fungi digest their food with enzymes they produce. Fungi also take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide like animals, while plants do just the reverse.

Nevertheless, as a vegetarian I am comfortable eating mushrooms and wild mushrooms are a true culinary delight - a feast for the forager - if you know what you are looking for.

When my husband and I first decided to learn about wild mushrooms, we were extremely fortunate to stumble upon the amazing and generous Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club. We decided to go on one of their free weekly walks, open to members and guests. They meet at parks all over Allegheny County and beyond, there are now chapters of the club in Indiana county and Washington/Greene counties. Usually led by club mycologists and attended by experts as well as amateurs, this is a great way to learn about the fungus among us (I just had to!)

Chicken Mushroom

On our way to Deer Lake to meet the club one Saturday in August, my husband Dave and I promised each other that no matter what they said we would not eat any wild mushrooms. Wild mushrooms are dangerous, I proclaimed, mimicking the warnings of my herbal mentor who told me, “Native Americans didn't even eat wild mushrooms,” (untrue) and “The number one cause of death among mycologists is mushroom poisoning!” (also not true.) But apparently a promise made is a promise broken in our household because before long we were filling our basket with golden yolk-colored chanterelles, a prized culinary mushroom.

A member of the Western PA Mushroom
Group with his basket of chanterelles.

One mushroom expert pointed out the false gills of the mushroom, and further explained that chanterelles grow singly from the ground unlike the poisonous (but rarely deadly) Jack O'Lantern, a common look-alike which often grows in clusters on wood. “But sometimes the wood is buried,” he warned, “like an underground root, so you have to be careful.” Another distinction is that Jack O'Lanterns are bio-luminescent, they glow in the dark. I was beginning to learn that edible or not, mushrooms are endlessly beautiful and fascinating.

We got the mushrooms home and prepared them, slicing them and noticing the apricot smell. We sauteed them (most edible wild mushrooms need to be cooked or can make you sick) and were hooked.

Filling out the application to join the club, one question asked, “How many wild mushrooms can you confidently identify?” I confidently filled in the blank with a zero. The thought of being able to identify wild mushrooms daunted me. Now I can identify over thirty, from delicious morels to the deadly Destroying Angel, both of which do indeed grow in this area.

Giant Puffballs

The late summer into the fall is a great time to learn about wild mushrooms. There are a lot of beginner-friendly edible mushrooms to identify all throughout the city parks including the chicken mushroom or sulfur shelf (one of my favorites), chanterelles, giant puffball, black trumpets, lions mane or bear tooth, and the hen of the woods. The best way to learn to identify these mushrooms is by walking with experts like those in the mushroom club and attending their monthly meetings at Beechwood Farm Nature Reserve, which are also free and open to guests. Their annual foray is in September. There are walks and talks by experts, as well as a mushroom feast: dozens of dishes made with wild mushrooms by members of the mushroom club.

You can also find identification information and wild mushroom recipes on our website, Food Under Foot. Adding mushrooms to your foraging basket is as fun as it is delicious, and can be safe with care and knowledge. As I've heard many times from many people in the mushroom club, “There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters.”

This article and all pictures copyright Melissa Sokulski

Lemon Thyme and Garlic Chanterelles

Chanterelles.

Those most gourmet of edible mushrooms. The bright yellow find in the woods, smelling deliciously of apricot. So good.

So they say.

I have never been a fan of chanterelles. But it turns out it was me, not them.

I should have known 65 million French people couldn't be wrong.

I simply didn't know how to prepare them. The past few years the woods of Western PA have been flooded with chanterelles. A whole group of mushroom hunters couldn't harvest enough to put a dent in what was out there.

Lemon Thyme and Garlic Chanterelles

vegan, gluten-free

adapted from this recipe on No Recipe Required

• 2 cups Chanterelles, washed and cut into equal sized pieces
• 1 - 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme or lemon thyme
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• sea salt, pepper
• squeeze of lemon

Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a heavy pan, turn heat to medium high.

Place chanterelles in pan in single layer. Add salt and let them cook until side on pan is browned, about 8 minutes.

Flip chanterelles and cook another 4 or 5 minutes. If pan dries out add more oil.

Add in thyme, then add in garlic, stir.

Turn off heat and grind in pepper and squeeze on lemon, stir again.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can use this as a side dish or serve over rice. Very very good.

Enjoy!

~ Melissa

Purslane Is Up! Gandhi's Kachumber Salad

Purslane is coming up! This healthy "weed" is delicious and versatile. It's high in Omega 3 fatty acids (unusual for a green plant) and is wonderful simply tossed into salad or eaten right out of the garden (where it's likely growing as a weed) or off the trail. Another great thing about purslane - it's here until fall. Enjoy the following information and recipe saved from the old blog!

One of Gandhi's favorite foods was a weed: purslane! He urged his followers to learn about wild plants and eat the weeds that grow around them as a way of empowering the people. In honor of Gandhi and purslane, I created this delicious Indian spice inspired salad: Purslane Kachumber Salad. I've used a spice blend called "Chaat Masala," which is available in Indian grocery stores and is largely dried mango, salt, cumin and other spices. If you don't have access to this spice, you can substitute cumin, coriander and cardamon (amounts below) or leave the spices out entirely. This salad is delicious with just salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil.

Purslane Kachumber Salad

Ingredients:

• Purslane, leaves pulled off and stem chopped (we are using both the leaves and chopped stems in this recipe)
• 1 - 2 Tbsp red onion, chopped (as much or little as you like, to taste)
• 1 cucumber, chopped
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 1/2 tsp chaat masala (optional, see above note. can substitute 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp coriander, 1/8 tsp cardamon or omit spices entirely.)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Whisk lemon juice and spices (if using) together, and add olive oil. Whisk until mixed well.

In separate bowl, mix purslane leaves and stems, tomatoes, cucumber and onion.

Top with dressing, add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix well and enjoy!

~ Melissa Sokulski