Pasithea

I think I've learned something important.

Mycologists apparently can't cook very well. I suspect they judge the quality of a mushroom by how well it withstands being pan-fried in butter.

I went hiking with some friends today and we looked for mushrooms. Found a ton of peppery lactarius but didn't collect any. Also saw about a million death caps, but again, didn't collect any.

They apparently aren't fond of blewits, so I got to keep all of those that we found. Last week I made a rather tasty and attractive stroganoff from blewits (recipe below)

We also found some variety of agaricus that is probably pretty good to eat. They kept those. They smelled quite nice, but I'm not incredibly fond of agaricus. (I think they were agaricus silvacolas if anyone cares) and some lactarius deliciousa.


I also collected a few boletus flaviporus, though I was told the flavor is not fantastic and they can be a little slimy when cooked.

So.. I took them home, sliced one up and pan-fried it in butter, and indeed, it was a little slimy. However, the taste and texture had some good elements to it, so I put on my thinking cap for a moment and decided to gamble on my cooking skills for dinner.

My solution? Bolete and potato soup. Ended up being really quite nice. The starch from the potato combined with the 'slimy' to make a not-slimy-at-all thickener.

Bolete And Potato Soup:

One large potato, half an onion, ~1/2lb 'mediocre' but fairly firm boletus (flaviporus, zelleri, mirabilis, etc) 1C milk, 2C water, 2 tsp butter, 5 cloves garlic, 1/4tsp thyme, salt, pepper.

Slice potato into pieces that will roughly match your mushroom bits in size. Call it 2cm thick and not more than 8cm in the other two dimensions.

Put water and one teaspoon butter into pot, bring to a boil, add in potato. After five minutes, reduce heat to medium, add milk, After a couple minutes, reduce heat to simmer. Try not to scald milk.

Meanwhile, chop up onion. Then, using the other tsp of butter, saute in a small skillet over medium heat.. Sort of between saute and seer, really.
Slice up garlic, add it to onions after onions have cooked 3 or 4 minutes.
Clean boletus with damp paper towel, slice and throw into saute a few minutes after the garlic.
Saute a couple minutes more until mushrooms are just starting to look cooked, then add all the saute into pot.

Increase heat to just above medium. Add thyme, salt, and pepper to taste. Let it cook for a couple minutes more, then remove from heat and serve.

Serves 1-2.

I had it with a pint of stout and it was quite a nice meal.


Blewit Stroganoff
~1lb blewits, ~1lb eggnoodle pasta, 1C sour cream, 1tsp butter, 1 large onion, dehydrated chicken bullion, salt, pepper, thyme

Get your noodles boiling in a pot. Make em how you like em. Al dente or not, up to you.

Clean blewits with damp cloth, slice up.

Saute blewits and onion in skillet with aforementioned butter.

Mix chicken bullion (I used a vegan alternative, you can use whatever you like. :) and sour cream together. I used my chicken bullion as the saltiness in my flavoring but it worked out to ~1cube of bullion (as much as the packaging says will make one cup of stock)

Once onions are becoming translucent, add sour cream/bullion mix to skillet. Add salt, pepper and thyme to taste.

Stir gently until thoroughly mixed.

Drain noodles, pour sauce into noodles and toss gently until thoroughly mixed.

Serve.

Mmmm.... How many food can you eat that are naturally bright purple? :)


BTW, please don't worry about me killing myself. Both of these mushrooms are very easy for even a novice to identify and I was with an experienced mycologist today. He let me take my guess and then helped me out if it was something I was unfamiliar with. I learned quite a bit.

I correctly identified all of the death caps and all of the agaricus (These two look vaguely alike and the mistaking one for the other is the most common cause of fatalities in mushroom IDs) They're really quite easy to tell apart as long as you're careful but for now, I'm limiting my intake to stuff that's very easy to identify and a mistake is less costly (An evening with the porcelain god as opposed to death)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitocybe_nuda AKA the blewit.

Quite tasty. Going to wait a night to make sure they agree with me and then make a blewit quiche with white cheddar and red onion; hopefully ending up with the gayest food ever... A lavender quiche.

Tasty and easy to identify. Win! :)

Stacey bought me some chantrelles earlier in the week and I took the opportunity to use them tonight.

Butternut Squash soup with chantrelles:

1.5C baked squash pulp.
1C milk
2C chicken stock
white pepper to taste
Bay leaf
1/2tsp oregano
pinch of nutmeg
2tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ginger
Puree and simmer medium heat.
Meanwhile, toast some coarsely chopped pine nuts and sautee about 1/2C chopped chantrelles in light olive oil.
Add these both to the soup about 5 minutes before serving.


Best freakin' rice I've ever made:

It was supposed to be a pilaf but it wasn't quite. It used a lot of the same things as the soup.

1C basmati rice
1C chicken stock
2/3C water
1/2tsp dried parsley.
1/4tsp white pepper
1/2tsp salt
Throw all this in the rice cooker.

When the rice is done, toast some pine nuts (same as above)
Sautee until lightly carmelized 1/2 large onion in 1tsp dark sesame oil.
Another 1/2C chopped chantrelles added to the onions about 3 minutes before they're done.

When the rice is done, add it to the skillet with the onions and chantrelles. Also add the pine nuts and 2tbsp butter.
Cook until rice no longer sticks to itself.

Both dishes were done in about 45 minutes start to finish. We had slice pear for dessert and a smidge of cognac with dinner. Sherry or a dry white wine might have gone better but it was quite good none the less.

And now for something completely different. http://www.octodog.net/


I need one of these and some velveeta and then I can make what I shall call 'American Calmari'.

I keep forgetting to post this! Stacey are cooking a buncha food on Thursday. If anyone is hungry, stop by. :)

Okay, first I want to note that this post is to make goldrose feel better, not to make centauress feel worse.

Stacey and I don't cook/eat a lot of meat but occassionally, there's a mood and we do. After all my yardwork yesterday and the smell of other people BBQing while I toiled away for SEVEN HOURS with a shovel, rake, and hoe, I decided I wanted steak and my loving spouse was kind enough to cook it for me. I love her. She made me this!

Apparently right at the end it like burst into flames or something. It wasn't pretty and she wasn't very happy, but I whined and begged and threw a fit, so she tried again.

The second attempt was just a smidge better, and the extra time gave the potatos I put in plenty of time to get done! Yay!!! So in the end, we had a pretty good dinner, and I didn't haveta cook. :)

Tonight we cooked dinner together and then made dessert, but that's on her page. :)

Hmm. so... My spouse and I were going to have veggie burgers for dinner except she didn't really buy any veggie burger mix like she said we did... She did go shopping though and there was some dublin port and cheddar cheese in the fridge and guiness (Okay, the guiness came a little later) Irish cheese and irish beer... There was only one thing to do... Make ethnic food night... So I put some sausages in a skillet with a bit of water and some bacon grease, boiled up some potatos and mashed them, and made a heavy oily brown gravy.... Stacey was ecstatic. I never cook this sort of stuff. ... And now I know why...

YOU WEIRD BRITIZENS! HOW DO YOU LIVE!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Two black and tans, a sausage, a pile of mash and gravy and cheese so sharp it makes your jaw clench and you break out in a cold sweat... Sure I'm in cheese bliss but I think I've taken 10 years off my life.

Good grief! Are you people mad? This stuff will kill you, or at the very least cause smaller bodies (Like Saturn) to fall into your orbit. Here I thought american food was bad. At least fried okra contains something green. Oy.

I'm going to lay on my back and sweat and breath heavily for a while. I think all my notions of british accents as attractive has been quashed by this night of debauchery.