Today we found 17 half frees and 3 yellows. This is the first time we have found any amount of half frees. Problem is that he frost-freeze got to them before we did so our net was two small yellows.
We searched for a half an hour for the babies that we saw on Tuesday and didn't find a one. Bummer.
The tasty news is that I cooked up some of the first batch that we found. Morels stuffed with crab meat, wild rice and fresh asparagus tips with a cheddar cheese sauce.
This is how I made the morels: I cut them in half and rinsed them with cold water and laid them out in a glass baking dish. I coarse chopped green onion, a few celery leaves and fake crab meat in the food processor. Then I melted butter in a skillet and sautéed the mixture until it started to get soft. Once things had softened up a bit I added a blot of honey mustard and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Stirred the mixture and added some Italian bread crumbs. Salt and pepper to taste. I spooned this mixture into the halved morels and baked them in the oven for about fifteen minutes.
It looked to me as though the ramps are ready to harvest but the sun was setting and we needed to head home. They'll keep for another day.
Yesterday I had a more typical outing. I found one morel. We had missed it the day before. Hopefully I'll get out again on Friday to see if any of the babies grew up.
Yesterday was a good day for use. Missus L and I went morel hunting and we did pretty good, finding 58 morels of various sizes. The bulk of our morels were found under two or three old apple trees. The rest were scattered in an area that was populated with young elm trees. We found none under the tulip poplars. Under the elms we discovered baby morels about an inch tall. If we can find those spots again, before someone else gets there, we should get about a dozen more. Last year I think I found about a half a dozen morels, so we are definitely off to a great start. Now if we can just keep up the pace.
We also visited an abandoned apple orchard where I thought we would get a bushel of them. We found none. Not a single one. One can dream. For awhile visions of sugarplums danced in our heads. One day I hope to be blessed with a single tree with over a hundred morels beneath it branches.
Saturday was Earth Day and we had a booth at Saint Vincent College. The gang really turned out. We had an excellent display that included a descriptive and educational poster board display, oyster mushroom kits, shiitake kit, mushroom log, scrapbooks and mushroom club items. We had a great time. Out next festival is the Venture Outdoors Festival on May 20th. Give George Yakulis a call if you would like to lend a hand.
I'll have some photos to post as soon as I can locate my USB cable.
Today I walked down to the garden and orchard to check my asparagus and I found several large groups of mushrooms growing on the buried stumps of bush apricots. This is the most mushrooms that I've seen this season. Unfortunately they were not the ones I hoped to find. I'll take a shot at identifying them later today. I headed out to weed and seed the garden before the rain comes.
Yesterday we took a deep breath and headed in the woods to gather some morels to have with our fresh picked asparagus. We had our asparagus without morels for dinner last night but at least we know they are not in their assigned places yet.
They are finding morels to the north of Pittsburgh rather than to the south as you would expect. I have a theory. Last year we had a severe drought. However the areas to the north received more rain than we did here. I noticed last year as we headed towards Erie that the farther north we drove the greener the vegetation.
I noticed yesterday that my asparagus has begun to poke thru the ground. That is a sign to me that the soil temperature and moisture are getting their for the morels. Now if only the apple trees would show their blossoms.
At Christmas time I shared with you some of our traditional mushroom recipes. You may have been wondering if I also had a set of Easter mushroom recipes to share? There are many traditions and foods associated with the Paschal season but none of them include mushrooms. I suspect that the last of the dried mushrooms were consumed during the Great Fast (Lent) when many people kept a strict fast of no meat, eggs or dairy products.
An annual rite of passage for me that marks the Easter season and the arrival of Spring involves the making of "hrin" or beets and horseradish. I dig the horseradish out of the garden on a good warm Spring day, one of those days that it is so nice and warm that you want to head into the woods to look for the first morels. Do this in March before the morels arrive to avoid the conflict.
Horseradish roots go very deep. You never get them all, but that is a good thing, the roots pieces that remain behind will produce another crop for you. It is as easy to get rid of horseradish as it is to get rid of that refreshing mint that you planted to flavor your iced tea. When you dig them out a lot of the garden comes with them. You can use a garden hose to clean them off and then go at them with a scrub brush but I prefer to clean mine off with a power-washer. I just lay them out in the driveway and chase them around with the power-washer until they are clean.
In the kitchen I cut them into workable chunks, peal them with a potato peeler, cut the peeled chunks into smaller pieces and place them into our food-processor. Chop as fine as you can and transfer them to a Tupperware bowl with a lid. The lid is very important. It is at this point that you will know if you have good horseradish.Tame horseradish will cause your eyes to water. Better quality horseradish will drive you from the room coughing. As the quality increases you will find that your eyes water and burn, respiration is difficult due to coughing and wheezing. If all of this occurs and you are driven to your knees then you have reached perfection. You can not chicken out at this point. You've only just begun.
I use the following recipe: To the ground horseradish add:
Stir, retreat from the kitchen. Continue this mixing and retreating process until the horseradish is properly moist. Just a just. Not too much and not too little. Place this mixture back into the food processor and chop it as fine as possible. Grind beets and mix them with the horseradish until you achieve a taste and hotness that suits your taste.
The great morel hunt turned out to be a bust. I visited one of my favorite morel spots on Friday. My gut feeling was that I was too early but I was forced into it by our two week no hunt rule and this week being Holy Week, I knew that I would be very busy with other things. I did find the woods greening up. I saw my first violets of the season, but mayflowers and ramps were not to be found.
I did not have the heartbreak of finding someone else's morel stumps so my three hour trek in the woods told me that I should have followed my gut instinct and stayed home to work on my garden. I don't have any asparagus yet. My asparagus and the local morels tend to appear about the same time.
Tonight I heard the peeper frogs in good voice so the ground must be warming up.
The Onion Snow! My garden is poking along and this morning there were not a lot of onion tops to show thru the snow, but I'll call it an onion snow none the less. The onion snow is an annual right of passage for Spring.
I'm sure this cold spell has put a damper on the emergence of morels and the ramps. I have never had a lot of success in finding black morels. Some day I hope to have my own secret spot that I can check early in the season but for now my search for the early morels is pretty much hit or miss. Mostly miss. If the weather warms up a bit towards the end of the week I plan to do some exploring to find some of the elusive morels and see how the ramps are progressing.
Well I got past April Fool's Day and managed to cause no mischief this year.
There have been reports of folks finding black morels but I'm still not getting real excited. The soil temperature in the mulched portion of my garden is still low at about 45 degrees. There are a lot of signs of spring around, to be sure, but I haven't heard the peeper frogs. It does look like wet week but some of that wet is supposed to be snow.
I suspect that the big week for morels will be Holy Week a busy time for the church cantor and preparing all of those delicious Pascal foods. Hopefully I'll be able to get out early in the week to do some scouting for morels.
