Passion for food while maintaining compassion for all living things.
Money grows on mushrooms That’s right, wild mushroom week has been extended to include this beauty! While hunting for chanterelles recently, I came across this mushroom growing at the base of a Douglas Fir tree. A few weeks ago I was flipping through pages of a mushroom identification guide and saw the cauliflower mushroom. I […]
I end this wild and wacky mushroom week with sage advice. Don’t wash your mushrooms! I cringe whenever I see someone cleaning mushrooms that way. Mushrooms are like little sponges and if you submerge them in water, it changes their texture for the worse. I come from the belief system that a little dirt is […]
Cantherellus Formosus My current favorite mushroom is the chanterelle, Cantherellus Formosus. They have a great texture, firm but not too chewy. My books say that they smell like apricots, although some beg to differ. I think it has a very fresh, floral smell. I also like that they aren’t dirty mushrooms like lobsters who grow […]
Isn’t it striking? My first experience with a lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum) was about a year and a half ago, eating a good-bye dinner with friends at Sitka & Spruce, an underground foodie restaurant in Seattle. I guess it’s not so underground anymore but the concepts of farm to fork, local, seasonal and sustainable are […]
Meaty and wild It appears that morels are gaining more popularity every year, or it could be that I live on the West Coast and am around them more often. My brother in Vermont has spent years seeking the elusive morel, while my husband grew up picking morels by the bagful in Washington. Since I’ve […]
NOM My earliest memories of puffballs are finding them in my childhood backyard and kicking them as hard as I could. I loved to watch the pouff! of spores as they were released into the air. Had I known then what I know now, I would have treated them with more respect. Most puffballs are […]
Great success! It will be a challenge to blog 5 times a week. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of material, but making time to blog this often is a hurdle. It is good for me. I don’t blog enough and luckily there are others out there taking on this challenge with me. Many […]
In the oven I have mixed emotions about peppers. They are beautiful to look at and pair nicely with a lot of ingredients, but I must admit, I’m not a fan of raw peppers. Occasionally I’ll enjoy their crunch in a salad or on a sandwich but I rarely buy them unless my goal is […]
Moist and delicious! My friend made this coffeecake at my bridal shower way back in my “fiance” days. It was amazing. A gift at my bridal shower was a recipe compilation from my friends and family (they each submitted a recipe and a photo of them and it was all combined into an album for […]
So begins vegan mo(nth of)fo(od), a month-long vegan blogging extravaganza throughout the interweb. There are over 200 people participating, flooding the internet with vegan recipes, ramblings, pictures and more. I am participating this year and the goal is to blog at least 5 times a week. There is a photopool over at Flickr as well. […]