One of my best performing plants all summer long was my Genovese basil. I had several containers that I had been growing it in with various tomato plants – it was in with the Green Zebras, the Early Girls, pretty much any tomato plant pot I could fit it in. I did this because it’s generally believed that planting basil within a foot or two from tomato plants will improve the flavor of the plants as well as drive off insects.

Well, having only grown these plants for the first time this year, I can’t speak to any effect on flavor from the proximity of the basil. And as far as insects go, it certainly didn’t do too much to ward off the hornworms, but apart from them I really had no issue.
And for the most part, the basil grew like mad. I couldn’t keep up with it. By this point in the summer, the stalks have started to resemble tree trunks.

As the fall approaches and a chill occasions to enter the air, I decided I should do something to preserve the huge amounts of basil being produced instead of letting it go to waste.

And so, pesto.

Pesto is great because it’s so easy to make at home – only four ingredients or so – it freezes well, and it can be used in countless dishes.

In this post I’ll go over a simple recipe for some homemade basil, and show an easy method for preserving it all through the winter.

This recipe calls for olive oil, you want to use some quality stuff here because – like making mayonnaise, it’s a prime ingredient of the recipe and the flavor will show through.

You also need a food processor for this. It’s not really avoidable. You could maybe make it in a blender, but you will need to grind up nuts – pine nuts or walnuts – and that’s a little tough without a processor. Theoretically you could do it with a mortar and pestle if you were dedicated, but again, go with the food processor here.

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: None

Ingredients…

- 4 cups basil leaves
- 1 cup olive oil
- 1 cup walnuts (pine nuts are the traditional option, I like using walnuts myself)
- 4-5 medium size cloves of garlic
- 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste

If you are planning on freezing this batch, leave the cheese out and add it when you are serving the pesto. It won’t freeze very well and you might get a bit of an off flavor from it.

You can easily double or halve this recipe, depending on what quantity of basil you’ve got on your hands.

1. Pick and wash basil leaves.

2. Pulse walnuts or pine nuts in food processor until well ground.

3. Add basil leaves and process in processor.

4. Mince garlic cloves and slowly add to processor while running.

5. Gradually pour olive oil in while processor is running, and salt and pepper to taste.

(6). Add cheese, if not freezing for storage.

To freeze and store, layer some plastic wrap into an ice tray and fill it up then cover with plastic. This will give you little serving size frozen pesto pieces, which you can heat and add cheese to when you are ready to serve. Alternatively, you can just freeze the whole thing in a big bag, but it is a little more unwieldy to deal with when serving if you go that way.

Not a particularly appetizing color, I admit.

As I mentioned, there are countless uses for pesto – you can use it with pasta, grilled chicken, chicken sandwiches, roasted or grilled vegetables, fresh cheese, warm breads, and lots more.

When I made this batch, I froze one and made another for some fresh mozzarella and tomatoes from the garden. Very simple, very delicious.

Full Disclosure: This was initially an attempt to make polenta from scratch, but it didn’t really work out that way. I never really got it to firm up quite the way I wanted to like polenta should. So instead I wound up with a bowl of grits – still delicious, but certainly a different consistency. More on this later.

I decided I wanted to try making polenta, or grits, from scratch mostly to get an idea of how it’s done and for a better understanding of the food I eat. The process is fairly laborious and probably not really something I would do often, though the results were pretty fantastic. I have consistently had a kitchen full of corn for quite some time now, between getting it from my CSA and being unable to resist it at the local markets every week. So I’ve been looking for some creative outlets, and this little experiment here piqued my curiosity.

I will say one of the significant plus sides of a process like this is that you could really store the dried corn kernels for quite some time, provided you keep them in an air-tight container. So if you have a major surplus of corn and won’t be able to eat it all before it goes bad, drying and storing can be a good route to consider.

I did this over two days – the steps included cleaning the corn from the ears, drying the kernels, grinding kernels into a coarse meal, re-hydrating and cooking the meal in a double boiler, and of course eating.

Here’s how I did it.

I started with 6 ears of corn. Even though you’re drying the kernels out, you still want to start with the freshest stuff possible. Harvested within the past 24-48 hours is ideal.

1. Shuck the corn, remove as much silk as possible.

2. Break ears of corn in half for easy cutting; cut kernels off ears.

3. Drop kernels of corn into a large bowl, and with a wet hand run your fingers through the corner to remove any excess silk that you missed – it will stick to your hand. Wash it off and repeat if necessary until all silk is removed.

4. Dry the corn. I did this by spreading it in one layer on a large baking sheet, and leaving it in an oven at 180 F for about 8 hours. If you have a food dehydrator, use it.

5. Remove corn from the oven, it should be thoroughly dried and hardened. At this point, you can move the kernels to an air-tight container to store indefinitely, or in my case just overnight so I could get some sleep.

6. Pound corn in a mortar and pestle until it is a coarse meal – this will take some time and definitely some energy. I may be in the minority on this one but I personally enjoy getting a little workout when I’m playing with my food.

Once you’ve got all your kernels pounded down, you’re ready to actually cook it. You may choose to strain out the finest of the powder to reserve for a cornbread or something, but I didn’t bother. There are many options here for cooking the corn meal – I went with a double boiler because I wanted to cook it for some time to reduce as much as possible, but didn’t want to have to stand over it the entire time either. A slow cooker would probably work well too.

7. Assemble your double boiler – in my case I use the ghetto-rigged method of putting a large metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. This works just fine. If you have an actual double boiler, fantastic.

8. Add 4 cups of water to every 1 cup of corn meal and add to bowl. My 6 ears yielded about 1 cup, so I added 4 cups of water here. I also added 1/2 cup of heavy cream, 1/4 stick of butter, and some salt and pepper.

This may have been where I went wrong. I suspect that I added too much liquid, because after cooking it down for quite some time, it was still very runny. I probably would have had more success with the polenta actually setting if I had either used a bit less liquid (perhaps 3c water instead of 4), or if I had reduced it even longer.

9. Reduce at a simmer over double boiler for 60-90 minutes. Make sure to check your pot so the water doesn’t run out and you don’t scorch it, I had to refill mine once over the duration of the time.

10. If you are making grits, you’re done. Pour it into a bowl and enjoy while nice and warm, or store and re-heat for breakfast. If you are attempting polenta, pour it into a pan and refrigerate overnight. If you’ve got the right consistency, it should set overnight and when you are ready to serve it you can warm it up, or fry it in some oil.

So yeah, as I mentioned it’s quite a process and very time consuming. But the grits I made were some of the best I’ve ever had, and it was certainly cool to actually step through the process myself. I felt like I was channeling the ancestral Puebloans 1,000 years ago (whose homes I visited earlier in the summer) while I was pounding out the meal. Never mind the fact I was watching a soccer match on TV while doing so.

I peppered a bit of cayenne over top of a bowl and it was delicious. My final result gave me about 4 large servings worth of grits.

Between learning these techniques and the shiitake mushroom yield I am expecting soon, I’m thinking a food dehydrator purchase may be in my future sometime. It would certainly have made much shorter work of the process, and it would be really nice to have a stock of home-prepared corn and dried mushrooms to keep in my kitchen cupboards at all times.

Have you ever worked with dehydrating foods?

So much going on this week.

First of all, it’s Wednesday, which means it’s Summer Fest time again. This week’s Summer Fest topic is herbs, greens, and/or beans. So we’re going to make some compound butter with fresh parsley, basil, rosemary, and garlic.

Compound butters really are super simple to make and do a great job of fancying up even the simplest of dishes. Much like making your own mayonnaise, it gives you the ability to add flavor where usually there is none, and also has the added bonus of tending to make non-cooking-types impressed.

So.

All you’re doing to make this is setting out a stick of butter to get to room temperature, mixing in the flavors, and then cooling again to re-solidify. That’s all there is to it.

Chop up your herbs as fine as you like and mince or grate the garlic. You can add as much or as little as you like – generally I add about 2-3 tbsp worth of herbs and one large clove of garlic.

WARNING: Don’t microwave or heat your butter in any way to speed up the tempering process. You are likely to wind up breaking the emulsion of the butter and then you’ll just have a big goopy mess and won’t be able to get it to re-solidify properly.

Once your herbs and butter are adequately folded together, spoon out onto a piece of parchment paper wide enough to roll it up in. Then simply roll it up, twist the ends, and it’s ready to go in the fridge. I recommend dating and labeling it – a habit which tends to help keep your fridge clean.

This will last in the fridge about as long as any regular butter would. Did you know you can freeze butter for long term storage? You should put it in a plastic bag or otherwise air-tight container before doing so, but butter can be kept frozen for months. I like to keep a couple varied compounds on hand that I’ve made ahead of time, so that I can break them out whenever necessary.

Compound butters don’t need to be made only with herbs, either. They can be made with all kinds of flavors – anything from honey and cinnamon, to shallots and red wine, and everything in between.

Later on this week, we’ll be using this compound butter on my steakhouse toasties which I’m guest posting over at Wisconsin Cheese Talk. These fancypants grilled cheese sandwiches are really some of my favorite sandwiches ever, so I hope you’ll head over there and take a look on Friday.

So what else is going on this week in the name of fresh summer time herbs? Have a little look-see. Go ahead. Do it.

• White on Rice Couple Todd and Diane use fresh mint to make homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream.
• Nicole at Pinch My Salt features Green Beans with Balsamic Browned Butter.
• Margaret at A Way to Garden stores a year of herbs—and makes one-pot Farinata, a polenta dish with greens.
• Food Network UK is on the edge with herbs and greens.
• Caroline at the Wright Recipes is cooking up Wax and Butter Bean Herbed Salad.
• Alison at Food 2: Leftover Herb Solution (Pesto!)
• Toby at HealthyEats has the Top 6 Herbs.
• Cooking Channel offers up the Best Bean Salads and a French Take on Greens, Beans and Herbs.
• Food Network Dish has the “other” summer greens.
• Jennifer and Mark at Gilded Fork have a virtual garden of recipes
  for basil, cilantro, fennel, lavender, lemongrass, rosemary, sage and tarragon.
• Shauna and Danny at Gluten Free Girl and the Chef will serve up something special midday Wednesday.
• Tigress in a Jam has a preserving–book giveaway, and ways to put up greens, beans, herbs.
• Caron at SanDiegoFoodstuff talks about Kale and Feta Empanadas and roasted Romano Beans.
• Alana at Eating From the Ground Up has shirred eggs with fresh herbs: the affinity between eggs and herbs.
• Cate at Sweetnicks has Fresh Green Bean Salad with Herb Vinaigrette.

Let’s talk about zest.

Bit of a confession here to make. As a home cook, I’ve largely ignored the power of a good citrus zest to top off a dish. It’s not because I didn’t realize it makes a difference, and it’s not because I didn’t want my food to be the best, but rather it’s because of that one ever-nagging nemesis of cooking and of pretty much all things creative – pure laziness.

I never really quite got the hang of how to even do it properly, so for me every time I tried to zest something it was somewhat of a struggle. And then there’s the fruit you just wasted. And the fact that you barely even got anything out of it to begin with, other than maybe a few small strips of hard-to-chew, oversized pithy pieces of zest. Every once in awhile I’d find some fancy new zester at a store and feel inspired to try it again for a little while, but inevitably if I saw a recipe calling for zest? It got skipped.

That’s all in the past now. I have conquered the citrus zest thanks to two tricks that I’ve learned in the past month or so. And, on the assumption that I’m not the only one out there who felt this way about zesting, I’m going to share those two simple things with you here.

First, use a microplane. Don’t even bother with “zesters” – for one thing, a zester is a single-user tool, which is a no-no for any kitchen – and for another, they just don’t really ever work all that well. A microplane, on the other hand, can be used for grating citrus zest, sea salt, chocolate, ginger, garlic, and all manner of things.

Next, instead of trying to grate the fruit over the microplane, instead hold the fruit in your hand and lightly drag the microplane over the fruit – top facing up. This will collect far more zest, and it’s much easier to keep from grating too deep into the peel, which will wind up giving you a chewy and bitter zest.

The zested fruit should still have a somewhat thick skin of pith around the whole of it, even after you’ve fully zested it. It will look something like this –

Zesting your fruit this way is absolutely so much easier. It was like a light bulb went off in my head and angels started singing.

Next up, tip number two.

To prevent waste, any time you zest a fruit – zest the whole thing. Even if your recipe only calls for a little pinch of zest (which is usually the case). Instead, zest the whole fruit, and put the extra zest into single portion sized clumps on a plate. Then put the plate into the freezer.

It helps if there is just a little bit of water on your fingers as you clump the zest. Once it’s in the freezer for about thirty minutes, you can take it out, and put all the portion sized frozen clumps into a zip loc back. Then it will keep in the freezer for three weeks to a month.

And all of a sudden, zest has become totally easy.

Homemade mayonnaise is just about one of the easiest things you can make, and it’s so much better than anything you can get from a store. There’s really no excuse for not doing it. It takes just three basic ingredients… THREE… to make mayonnaise. Egg yolks, oil, and some acid – this could be anything from citrus, to wine, to vinegar, etc. For this method we’re going to use just a couple more ingredients, but only to fancy it up a little. They are not entirely necessary.

One of the cool things about something like mayonnaise is what makes it work – emulsion. In a mixture like this, with two substances that don’t combine naturally, you need a little science to help out the cause. That’s where the emulsification comes into play – emulsification is a mixture of two or more of these typically un-mixable liquids. The most common emulsions are fat and water, such as in the case with mayonnaise, but emulsions can also apply to things like vinaigrettes, or fat combining with protein and water to make hot dogs. Hollandaise is an emulsified sauce. Milk is an unstable emulsification, if it is not homogenized, which is why raw milk will separate over time and the cream will float to the top and form a layer of fat.

By whipping the oil and egg yolk into a frenzy, you separate the microscopic bits of fat apart from each other by working the emulsifier in between them – in this case the emulsifier being the water from an egg yolk. As the water works it’s way into the fat, you wind up with a new texture and a new mix unlike either the fat or the water, a third product which is wholly different from the two combined parts. The water then holds these parts of fat away from each other, which holds the mix at it’s particular unique texture and fluidity. If the mixture “breaks,” it’s actually the fat particles coming back together, and thereby separating from the water again. You can see this with butter sometimes, if perhaps you’ve tried to re-heat a particularly buttery dish in the microwave – you might wind up with a bunch of bits of fat and oil rather than one consistent substance.

Knowing how emulsification works, you can fix broken sauces or mixtures pretty easy. All you need to do is get the emulsifier (water) back in between those fat particles. In this instance, with mayonnaise, you can fix a break by getting another egg yolk, beating it slightly, and then slowly adding the broken mixture back into the new yolk. This will re-establish your emulsification.

Ready? Okay, let’s do this.

You will need:

- 2 egg yolks
- 1 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp Dijon style mustard
- salt and pepper to taste

The key to a good emulsified sauce is to take your time. This will require a lot of whisking, but it’s a good work out. If you *really* want to, you can make this in a food processor by drizzling the oil slowly into the top while the rest is blending, but I think you get a much more even and smooth texture doing it by hand. Plus, come on, it’s not that hard.

Start by combining the egg yolks, lemon juice, and mustard in a large bowl. Beat together until well mixed.

With your oil set out in a measuring cup, start slowly drizzling it in. The very beginning is the most important part, you want to really make sure that every single drop of that oil is well whisked into the mixture. Start with just a couple drops. As you establish the emulsion, you can slowly speed up until you have finally added in all the oil. This is really the only even slightly difficult part of the process, because it takes patience and a good deal of arm strength. If you get fatigued, switch arms.

Aaaaand guess what. You’re done. Homemade mayonnaise will take you about 15 minutes tops, for a whole jar’s worth. And it only calls for ingredients that you’ve probably already got in your kitchen.

To spice it up a bit, you can add some flavors in towards the end. For my batch here, I used a little more lemon juice and some fresh basil leaves. But feel free to get creative – any kind of fresh herbs, garlic, shallots, wine, vinegars, peppers/cayenne, spices, etc. will make for a tasty and unique mayonnaise that you’d never find on a store shelf. Get creative.

Extra credit: make up a batch of your own homemade mayonnaise and I’ll have a great recipe for you to use with it on Friday. If you flavor it, think fresh and garden veg rather than savory.

There is currently a contest open! Be sure to check it out here and enter to win. The contest will be closing at 6pm EST on Thursday, July 1st.

Though I have been a lover of pickles my whole life, I have never pickled. This was a fact that I had meant for some time to remedy, and finally the day has come.

It’s really super easy. And the only real limitations are your imagination – you can pickle damn near anything. Okay, some results might be better than others, but the fact remains. Vegetables, meats, whatever.

I picked some veggies that I had just recently grabbed from the market the past weekend. I looked around all my favorite little corners of the internet for a good recipe for pickling – most involve some water, some salt, a lot of vinegar (white, or white wine, or cider, lots of different options), some herbs, and some garlic. I settled on using the recipe recently posted by the White on Rice Couple for pickled green tomatoes because… well, mostly because their pictures of those tomatoes were so awesome. But a pickling recipe in general is something I think you can really play with a lot, and while this was only my first attempt I do expect that eventually I will have several different pickling recipes in my arsenal that I have honed down to perfection after awhile.

Note – I didn’t cook the carrots or daikon before pickling this time around, because I’m intending them really to be just a good snack. If you want to use them in a dish, you may want to cook the harder vegetables in boiling water for a few minutes before putting them into your mason jars.

So like I said, easy peasy. I made two mason jars worth of pickled vegetables, and the amounts below were sufficient without doubling.

Ingredients…

- 3 large carrots
- 2 large daikon
- 2 pickling size cucumbers
- 2 quarts (8 cups) of water
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 1/2 cup sea salt or kosher salt or canning salt or pickling salt
- 2 cloves minced garlic (1 clove per jar)
- (optional) red pepper flakes for some heat

Put the water, vinegar, and salt all into a large sauce pan over a medium-high heat and bring up to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Simmer for awhile until all the salt is completely dissolved. This is a good time to chop up all your vegetables.

Meanwhile, boil your mason jars in a pot of water to make sure they are good and clean. This will sterilize them. Dishwashers will do a pretty good job too as long as you have the heat on the highest setting (note: if you are sterilizing for the purpose of canning, you definitely want to boil them).

Add your chopped up vegetables to the mason jars.

Admire them. Gently caress them. Whisper sweet nothings to them, really get them in a the mood for a good, hard… pickling.

I was just about ready to finish up the job and pour the pickling liquid into the jars when I spotted a bunch of lonely cherry tomatoes desperately trying to catch my eye. I could almost hear them crying out, just begging to be pickled. And as any good, chivalrous gentleman would, I succumbed to their seductions and gave them the pickling they deserved.

When your vegetables are in the jars and all ready and primed for pickling, douse them with your pickle juice, really get it all over them until the jar is filled up and the vegetables are entirely submerged in the warm, salty liquid. And then just when they think they’ve had enough and can’t take anymore, that’s when you hit them with the garlic and spices. And then, they can rest. For awhile, to cool to room temperature.

Now, you’re almost done. All that’s left is to set the jars in the fridge for two full days worth of marathon non-stop, nasty, toe-curling pickling, at the end of which they will be utterly exhausted, thoroughly elated, and completely delicious.

And I assure you, if you’ve done everything just right, this is a treat you will definitely want to call on the next day. And the next. And the next. A good relationship can be maintained for several months, but after that, it’s best to find yourself some new vegetables to pickle – as time passes things will undoubtedly start to turn a little sour.

I think I need a cold shower.

About one year ago and a couple months ago, I found an instructional video on the web about cooking with a slab of giant pink salt. I wish I were still able to dig up the video to share, but no such luck. If I could, I would attribute the hell out of it, but since I can’t you’ll just have to settle for what I have to say about it.

I saw this little video and was immediately sold. I needed one of these salt blocks. Now.

I think I probably went out that very weekend in search of one. I managed to secure my very own giant slab of Himalayan salt from SLT (I hate saying Sur La Table for reasons that South Park has illustrated very well) for just shy of $40. You can order them from a number of places online, too, but you’re usually stuck paying $50 or $60 for a good size on account of the shipping charges.

I know what you’re thinking.

“But Liam, the Himalayas are far away. Think of how far that salt had to travel to get to you.”

And you’re right. Thousands of miles. But thanks to the enormity of the block of salt itself, and the multitude of uses for it, it is something you can use in your kitchen over and over and over again for a year or more before it’s all used up.

My first block did last me just about a year and I was using it probably 3-4 times a week at that point since I was so excited by the novelty of it. Now, I just bought my second one, and I might not use it quite as often but it’s still incredibly useful and really brings a lot of dishes up to that next level.

I mentioned a multitude of uses. I think mine probably gets the most use on the grill.

When grilling, you can put a block of salt right on the grill for grilling soft fish, seafood, or really any meat you want also. If I’m doing a more substantial meat like chicken (which is what I did with my recent margarita chicken post) I’ll cook it 90% of the way on the salt block and then finish it in the grill for those authentic cross hatches.

When you grill with one of these, you just need to make sure you put it on the grill as it is heating up so there’s no extreme temperature shift. Other than that, they are good to go for up to 1500 F. Fish works great.

Here’s some turbot I made a couple days ago.

Shrimp is also perfect. I’ve grilled pizza on one, too. The crust was to die for.

The great thing about cooking with the salt block is that it pretty much always perfectly salts your food. During the cooking process, the salt gets absorbed up into the meat (or whatever you’re cooking on it) at a rate based on the density of the cooking product so you don’t ever get any over-salting. You want to make sure not to use any salt in your sauces or anything that you might use on top of these meats though, as that will almost definitely be overkill.

More uses –

1. Roast food in the oven on top of it
2. Serve cold food like cold cuts or vegetables on top of it (they will still absorb the salt)
3. Use as a sushi serving platter
4. When pieces break off, you can grate them with a microplane for every day salting
5. Bring up to high heat in the oven for 30 minutes, then cook a steak on top of it – at the table. It will retain heat for 30-45 minutes after removal from oven, plenty of time for cooking pretty much anything and some major show-off points

Cleaning is pretty easy. Salt is naturally anti-microbial so you don’t have to worry about any bacteria growing on it. After every use simply wipe it down real well with a sponge under running water.

As you continually use the block, it will degrade slowly. Admittedly, the cleaning does get a bit tougher as it degrades because it degrades erratically – you lose the smooth surface that it started with. But it’s never that difficult. Eventually, pieces will break off that you can use for anything you want. My first block did last about a year under heavy usage, so it was well worth the initial cost. I still have a sizable chunk that I use for grating over my food.

If you grill a lot or eat a lot of fish/seafood, you will love owning one of these. I’ve *never* had salmon so good as the stuff that comes off my salt block. It’s just really incredible.

I’m far from any sort of salt connoisseur but I love this stuff. I want to learn more about some different gourmet salts – do you have any favorites or any great experiences with salt, either at a restaurant or at home?

So I went on my first ever official mushroom foray last weekend. I have to admit I had a significant amount of trepidation about the whole thing, but it turned out completely awesome.

Pretty much everything about the idea of hunting for wild mushrooms appeals to me – you get a reason to wander around in the woods, you get to learn about your local flora, fauna, and fungi, and if you’re lucky you wind up with a serious haul of some very delicious food. I love the idea of wild food foraging because you really can’t get any more local and “un-processed” than going out there and harvesting it yourself from the wild. For all these reasons, I was seriously looking forward to the adventure.

Thanks to Slow Food DC and the Mycological Association of Washington, DC (MAW), a local foray had been planned for first timers. I’d never been given an opportunity to hunt mushrooms with people who I was confident wouldn’t get me killed, so I jumped at the chance. The Mrs. might not have exactly “jumped” at it, but she did graciously allow herself to get dragged along (and she might not admit it but I’m pretty sure she had a good time).

The trepidation mostly came from the fact that it had been predicted to thunderstorm all weekend long. A two hour jaunt in the woods on a breezy Spring day sounds like a beautiful way to waste some time, but add a thunderstorm into the mix and it’s likely you might have second thoughts. We did get a bit of a sprinkle here and there but for the most part the clouds held and we in fact wound up with a fairly pretty day in the park – if maybe it was a bit chilly.

We all gathered (there were about 30 of us) at 9:00am at an “undisclosed location” in Montgomery County, MD. There were 4 guides from MAW who spoke to us about mushroom hunting for about an hour and gave us the run down on what we should be looking for. There’s no way an hour long lecture could ever be enough knowledge for us to go out and hunt and start identifying the shrooms on our own with any kind of certainty, so I’m far from any kind of shroom hunter extraordinaire after this experience. What I do know, though, is what a morel looks like. And for me, that’s good enough for now.

Morels (pronounced “more-ELL” as opposed to “MORE-ul”) are like mushroom gold. These things fetch a pretty penny to buy them dried at the market, have bucked any attempt at cultivation, and they are Tasty with a capital “T”. They grow for a brief period of just a few weeks in late April – early May. They are practically camouflage in the environment they favor, but when you learn to train your eyes for the unique pattern of the caps you start to be able to spot them.

There are hints and tips to go on. Morels like to grow in tulip poplar groves, so you can identify a patch of ground that a morel might like to grow in by checking the leaf color from the previous year’s fallen leaves. They grow out of this semi-composted top layer on the forest floor, so a nice soft bed of old poplar leaves is best. Fortunately, poplar leaves turn a kind of light brown/white color as they decay so you can look for that as you hunt. Oak and other leaves will decay a darker brown. Morels also grow among ash trees, dying elms, and old apple orchards. Where we were hunting, there were really only tulip poplars to look for.

As the talk wrapped up and we got ready to head out into the woods, the MAW guide told us a story about his first time hunting mushrooms at a park in VA… and how he got bitten by a Copperhead snake while doing so. GREAT. Way to give us a boost of confidence! Of course, snakes are a concern that one should be aware of, but if you recall from my run the other day, Amanda has a huge, serious phobia. At this point – I’m ready and anxious to go get out into the woods and hunt some mushrooms, and she’s ready to get in the car and go home. Considering that this was all my idea in the first place, that she doesn’t even like mushrooms all that much, and that now she’d have to spend all her time in the woods obsessing over potential snake attacks, I have to give her high marks of matrimonial fortitude in trudging off into the woods with me regardless.

Our group of 30 split up with the 4 different guides and walked out into the woods. There were some paths, but we basically just went off over the terrain. Within literally 10 minutes, our group had stumbled onto a pretty large stand of morels. I honestly did not expect I’d find a thing from this hunt, but there they were right in front of us. When you find one morel, you’ve almost inevitably found many more in the surrounding area (unless another hunter has been through recently and just missed that last one). From then on, we had a taste for it, and it only got better.

After spending about 2 hours out in the woods, we had a grand total of 43 morel mushrooms – more than anyone else in all of the groups. That’s the kind of first-time experience that makes you a believer. My mushroom-hunt-friendly mesh bag (mesh is best because then you disperse the spores from what you’ve hunted as you continue to walk through the woods) was about 3/4 full when I’d have been happy to come home with just one specimen.

Of course, when I came home with such a bounty the first thing I did (after taking copious amounts of mostly bad photographs) was decide on how to cook some up for dinner. I had some good local steak in my freezer and decided to make a cream sauce with asparagus and the morels. I probably could have gone with just the morels, even as the base for the whole meal, but most of the ones I found were fairly small so I decided to embellish a bit with a few other ingredients.

Morels have a deep earthy/smoky flavor that is very complex. They are really delicious and I’ve never had mushrooms so good before. Plus, the added bonus of the fact that I hunted and picked them with my wife that very morning out in the woods, means that they are going to make for a most satisfying meal indeed.

People have a healthy fear of wild mushrooms – as they should – but I feel that a lot of this is borne out of our modern day disconnect to food. Who in their right mind would eat something they just found on the forest floor, after all? But armed with just a small amount of knowledge and experience we can once again start to re-awaken ourselves to the bounties of the natural world around us. It’s a great knowledge to possess.

On that note…

Grilled Steak with Morel-Asparagus Cream Sauce and Spinach Pasta

Ingredients…

- steak (I used top sirloin in this instance)
- 2 cups fresh morels
- 1/2 bunch asparagus
- 1 large shallot bulb
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup heavy cream

Start by soaking the morels in water with about a teaspoon or two of salt for at least an hour.

This step is presuming you’ve gotten them fresh from the woods and haven’t yet washed them – the soaking process is to kill any insects that might be in there (morels are hollow) and wash off any excess dirt. If yours are already clean/washed, you can skip this step.

Cut the morels in half lengthwise. Try to preserve the shape of them as they are beautiful in a dish.

Heat up a skillet to medium heat and add half the butter. Dice shallot and add to skillet.

Add morels to skillet, try not to crowd them. Cook for 3-5 minutes on each side.

Morels are toxic eaten raw, so you never want to eat them without cooking them first. They won’t kill you, but you will regret it.

Wash and chop asparagus into pieces roughly 1 inch long. Add to skillet.

Cook for 3 minutes, then add the rest of the butter and the heavy cream.

Turn heat back to medium-low, and let simmer for 30 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking, go grill your steak. Or cook it on your stove top. Or whatever it is you most like to do with steaks. Just don’t screw it up, okay? I’m trusting you with this one.

As the sauce and the steak cook, you can prepare your pasta. I used a spinach spaghetti for this one, but it’s really up to you.

Bring 2-3 cups of lightly salted water up to a boil in a stock pot. Add pasta. Turn heat down to medium-high, and cook for 7-10 minutes.

How to tell if your spaghetti is done cooking: take a piece out of the pot and throw it at the wall. If it sticks, it’s done. If not, it needs a few more minutes.

Yes, I’m serious. CIA probably has a different method though.

Once your steak is fully cooked, the pasta is done, and the sauce has been simmering for a half hour, you’re ready to plate it up.

This was totally yummy and one of the more satisfying meals I’ve had in awhile. Amanda loved it too, and despite her initial fears has come to accept that morel hunting is actually pretty awesome.

I took the other half of our haul and set about learning how to dry them for indefinite storage. There are many different methods out there on the internet, but since I didn’t have a dehydrator and it was expected to rain the next few days, I dried them in my oven.

I did this by running a thread through the base of the mushrooms and putting them all together like a necklace. I then removed all but one oven rack on the highest available slot and hung them from it. Leaving the oven on 175 degrees F, I kept the oven door cracked and had a fan blowing in that direction. This method took about 6 hours.

When it was finished, I put a mason jar and lid into the oven for about 5 minutes (to make sure there was absolutely no moisture in it), and then dropped the dried up mushrooms into it and sealed them up. Mushrooms will stay good like this for years.

To reconstitute them for cooking, simply soak them in water for about 30-45 minutes and you’re good to go.

I’m already trying to figure out when I can sneak out into the woods again before the season’s over…

Do you have any cool experiences with wild foods?

So here’s the last post in my little mini-series from A Great Saturday with Friends™.

The day included minted white sangrias, mushroom pockets and BLTs for lunch, and some grilled asparagus as a side dish for this main course.

Here’s how it all went down…

Saturday morning I woke up early to hit the farmer’s market with very little idea of what I’d be preparing that evening for our anticipated guests. I made the sangria the day before, so – check. I had the ingredients for some light lunch fare as well, so that’s covered. But dinner? I’d been struggling all week with making a decision.

Enter the ramp. Now, this day was my first personal exposure (sounds naughty, I know… … and it was) to ramps. I’d read a lot about them recently and had filed a note somewhere in the back of my mind to keep an eye out for them soon at the farmer’s market, but on this particular morning they were the farthest thing from my mind. “So what the hell is a ramp?” you might be wondering.

A ramp is basically a wild leek. It’s a bit similar to a green onion, but .. well, different. More garlicky. You know, I don’t even really know what the hell a ramp is just yet. I feel under qualified to explain. But what I do know is they are DELICIOUS. And I know they basically only grow for a very short season around the mid-Atlantic region (a bit farther than the mid-Atlantic, actually going as far north as Canada). They are supremely popular in West Virginia, where they are used in countless dishes and the coming of ramp season is celebrated with numerous festivals and events. If you know more about ramps than me (and if you’re reading this and you had already heard of them then you probably do), then I’d love if you’d share some of your knowledge with me and my readers.

Anyway, I hit the market and went up to my local meat guy to see what he had left in stock. I got stuck in some ridiculous traffic (took over an hour for a 20 minute drive), and was worried what he’d have left, but still even then didn’t know what I’d be making. I picked up some bacon (always do), and a few other things I usually get. And then I asked if he had any chicken left.

“Yep… we’ve got…. umm… oh no, wait…. hm… yep, there’s one left. You want it?”

Clearly, a sign from above. Or below. Or somewhere, anyway. (I’m an equal opportunity non-believer).

So I bought the chicken from the man and my plans started formulating. Of course, pretty much implicit in this is the slow realization that I will have to butcher a whole raw chicken for the first time in my life if I wanted to bbq it. I suppose I could have roasted it over the grill but I just wasn’t into that. And the fact that I’d be using the grill was absolutely non-negotiable thanks to the beautiful weather we were having. So I thought, okay, now I just need to find some seriously kick ass bbq sauce and I’ll be well on my way.

I went over to another one of my favorite stands at the market and asked if they had any bbq sauce. No luck. Asked if he had any alternative suggestions, and when pressed, he suggested… ramp mustard. That link goes to the actual producer, by the way, not just a random link. Bigg Riggs farm – they make some really great products. So, knowing what I knew about ramps (very little), I just went with it. I also picked up a bunch of fresh ramps while I was there to stash for another time.

Came home then and immediately starting brining the chicken (explained in this post) so it would thaw in time.

Then I went out for a run. Just shy of 7 miles with Amanda. Aaaaand I locked us out of the house. So we got back all sweaty and thirsty and ready to collapse and had to sit on the stoop and wait to be bailed out by a friend. You know, there are some things I’m really good at. Some things I even have pretty decent consistency with. Not being a complete and total idiot is not one of these things.

Despite the delay I still managed to get most of my prep work done by the time the guests arrived. I hacked, hammered, and carved my way through the raw chicken until finally I had 10 pieces that, if not perfect, at least approximated the idea of wings, thighs, legs, and breasts. I will spare you the pictures and the gory details, but it was definitely an eye-opening experience for me. You simply can not do something like that without becoming intimately familiar with your food – of course I see this as a very positive thing.

Once I had my chicken cut up – and yes, I did mean 10 pieces, I cut the breasts in half – I put it back in the brine for a little while longer just to make sure it had fully thawed all the way through.

Ingredients…

- chicken: legs, thighs, wings, breasts
- 4-5 sweet potatoes
- ramp mustard

Start by bringing the grill up to medium heat and boiling a stock pot with 4 or 5 cups of water. Bonus points if you’ve got a side burner on your grill.

Cut sweet potatoes into long fry shapes. You can skin them first if you want, but I prefer not to. More fiber that way. Add salt to the stock pot.

Drop some salt into the stock pot, and once the water is boiling add the potato slices and bring back down to a simmer.

Liberally coat chicken pieces with Bigg Riggs ramp mustard (no, I’m not getting any kickbacks – it’s just GOOD).

If you have any experience with cooking a whole chicken, you’ve probably realized that all the parts of it will not cook evenly. So it’s best to coordinate when you place each piece on the grill so it will all come off at the same time.

Put the legs and thighs on the grill first.

5 minutes later add the breasts.

5 minutes later add the wings.

As you are going through this sequence, check and make sure none of the meat is too close to any flame that it will get burnt. You want a to sear a bit to seal the juices within the meat, but you should do that when you first put the meat on the grill and then move it farther away from the flame for the rest of the cooking. Also keep an eye on the dripping fat, as it may cause flare-ups and you don’t want anything catching. I like to re-apply the marinade or glaze (in this case the ramp mustard) pretty much every time I handle the chicken while it’s grilling.

The potato should have been boiling in the stock pot for about 10-15 minutes by now. Remove from the stock pot and let the water drip off in a colander for 5 minutes.

Once the breasts are on leave everything in there, away from the flame and with the hood closed, for about 10 minutes.

Open the hood, flip the meat, and add potatoes to the grill. You can put them near the flame because you just want to crisp them up, but make sure they don’t catch on fire.

Close grill and cook for another 10 minutes or so, turning potatoes half way through. Continue to check periodically for flare-ups.

Depending on how much chicken you are cooking, your length of time will vary – it usually takes 25-30 minutes total or so. Check legs and thighs for doneness as they will be the last to cook fully.

Remove chicken from the grill and let rest for at least 5 minutes for the juices to set before cutting into it. Serve!

The ramp mustard totally makes this. It is amazing. I was hoping to try to approximate a recipe for some homemade mustard but if you want to go that far it’s on you this time.

Cheers.

What do you know about ramps? I think I’m in love.

I do so love cheese. After making my own mozzarella, I have been bitten by the cheese bug. And now, the adventure continues.

This time it’s homemade chèvre. It actually is even EASIER than making the mozzarella, but it takes far longer. I love goat cheese; I really only discovered it about 2 or 3 years ago.. and I have Amanda to thank for that one.

I set out to make this and blog about it on Sunday, and learned again one of those lessons that you always know but often forget to practice.

Always read the WHOLE recipe before starting it. Always!

The process is very simple, but it takes 18-30 hours. Don’t let this scare you – all but about 5 minutes of this time you’re just letting the cheese do it’s thing. But yeah, this one doesn’t quite fit into a Sunday afternoon.

You will only need a few ingredients…

- 1 gallon of goat milk (raw or pasteurized but not ultra pasteurized)
- cheese salt
- chèvre direct set culture or liquid rennet
- butter muslin/cheese cloth

The first thing to do is pasteurize the milk if it is raw. This is easy.. pour all the milk into a large stock pot, and heat just over 145 degrees F. Maintain this temperature for 30 minutes. That’s it. Pasteurized. Done.

I can’t believe Louis Pasteur actually managed to get such a simple process named after himself. Well done, Louis. Well done.

What about the first guy to bring beer down below a certain temperature for a period of time before consuming? He never got a ‘process’ named after himself. Unless his name was Roberto Refrigerate. Re-frig-eh-rah-tay. Hmm, now I’m curious…

OKAY so back to the milk. You will find this recipe allows for many such daydream moments. Happens to the best of us.

If you are using liquid rennet, put 2 tsp of it into a small bowl with 1/4 c cold water. Set aside.

Once the milk has been pasteurized, let it cool back down to about 85 degrees F. At this point, add either the liquid rennet and water mix, or the direct set packet to the milk and stir with an up and down motion for 30 seconds.

Now… put a lid on it. Take the stock pot off the burner.

For the next 12-24 hours, do something that doesn’t involve the goat’s milk at all. I recommend:

- Sleeping

Especially after all this EXHAUSTING work stirring some milk and then putting something into it.

After 12-24 hours (give or take a minute or two), the curd should be pretty firm and the whey has separated (the whey is a clear liquid, the curd a more substantial white color). Touch the top of it lightly with your fingers to confirm. Set a colander in the sink and line it with butter muslin, then gently ladle the curds into the colander.

Cover up the top with the rest of the muslin so it is somewhat sealed off.

Now, leave it alone again for another 6-12 hours while it drains. During this time I recommend:

- Sleeping again
- Going to work (avoid if possible)
- Free time!*

*(Free time can be spent on an activity of your choosing)

Guess what. That’s pretty much it.

The longer you wait during this last period, the harder the cheese will get. If you let it drain for closer to 12 hours, it will be more crumbly.

Take the goat cheese out of the colander and put it in a bowl.

Once it’s in a bowl, mix it up with a generous amount of salt – feel free to taste as you add it, this is your final product. I usually use about 1 tablespoon worth of salt.

This is so yummy. You can also add fresh herbs here, or maybe some almonds or dried fruits.

Yield should be about 2 pounds. It will keep in the fridge about two weeks.

Costs…

Milk – $12
Rennet – >$1.00 per batch

Total cost – $13

Goat cheese runs me about $5 for 4 oz at my market. That’s $20 a pound. This process yields twice that. And it even tastes better. And it frankly couldn’t possibly be easier.

So according to the internet, refrigerate comes from the Latin ‘frigus’ which means cold. So Roberto has never gotten the credit he deserves. A shame, truly.