Update on the Mushroom Tree

As I was out feeding the chickens this morning, I spotted something kinda gross looking, and potentially very exciting.

Last fall, some of you may remember, I got the idea to inoculate a stump in our chicken yard with wild edible mushrooms. Due to the species of the tree, I chose Chicken of the Woods mushrooms (Laetiporus sulphureus), and set about plugging the stump.

The beautiful bloom depicted on the right is not the stump in my back yard, but a bit of a dream picture of what it could look like as early as this fall.

Below is a picture of the state of the "dry" or "inactive-looking" plugs in the stump. If you click it to get a better view, you can see a number of the dowels sticking out from the bark, looking quite "dowelly", and not super biologically active.



And next are two picture of what look to me to be fully active, early-stage spots of growth at some of the "active" plugs. Unless this is newbish ignorance, like some kind of successful immune-response from the stump, I believe we have liftoff. They are even a creamy orange color, which fits the species of mushroom I chose to grow in this stump.





Enjoy turning waste wood into beautiful food,

Bp

[top picture courtesy of Wiki Commons]

Nettle Time -- Part 4, cooking

Now for the fourth and final installment about my first spring picking of Nettles -- recipes.

Here is the easy answer as to how to use fresh/parboiled nettles -- treat them like spinach.

Some recipes I tried were Nettle Quiche (top), and Sauteed Nettles.

The Nettle Quiche is very straightforward, I just used a basic quiche recipe and put some chopped, sauteed nettles into the mix with the cheese.




The Sauteed Nettles are simply onions cut thin, sauteed down until carmelized, then the parboiled, chopped nettles introduced into the pan with some salt and pepper and tossed until warm and coated with tasty onion oil goodness. The non-veg version is to cook bacon in the pan first, pour off most of the fat, keeping about 2 Tbs., then cook the onions and Nettles as above, but adding bacon bits into the mix. Mega tasty.

Although I used freshly-parboiled Nettles for the dishes pictured here, frozen ones work just dandy. The flavor is preserved, and if you were sparce with parboiling as I mentioned in Part 3, then the texture will be good as well.

The taste of the nettles was most apparent in the saute recipes, so if you are wanting to show off their unique flavor I'd go that route.

I found out that folks have been able to buy nettles at farmers markets lately, so you might want to check that option out if you don't have time to hit the woods but want to experiment with these greens.

Enjoy exploring wild foods this spring,

Bp

Nettle Time -- Part 3, freezing

Freezing is now my favorite way to store Nettles. The end product is versatile and super tasty.

Farmer Theo said that his frozen Nettles ended up weird, slimy and black. I was hoping that was due to over cooking, so my main goal was to parboil the nettles just long enough to make them edible, but not long enough to make the leaves break down. I succeeded.

This first picture is of my parboiling setup. I use a stainless steel stock pot with a pasta insert. I get the water (with a little salt added) to a roiling boil, full power, and dump the full pasta insert in with the nettles. I stir the nettles to make sure they're all exposed to the boiling water -- 30 seconds to 1 minute maximum. The closer to 30 seconds the better in my book.



Here is the finished parboiled product. Note the bright green stems and still-green leaves -- this is what you see when they are correctly boiled. None of the leaves are more than slightly wilted, and definitely none of them are a dark, blackish-green color. That is a sign of over-cooking.

At this point they are ready to eat, and we did eat plenty of them right out of the pot -- no salt, no butter no nothing. I really love the taste of these guys, it is like a flowery, mellow spinach flavor. Oh and here's something I learned the hard way -- don't store the newly-cooked greens in a big pile (say in a huge steel bowl) for very long, because they keep cooking and can over-cook. Spread them out to cool and get em bagged up as soon as you can.



For bagging up, I use a Food Saver Vacuum Machine. For the price it works dandy. You can see from the pictures that I leave a lot of empty space in the bags. That is because I re-use them if I've only stored vegtables in them. They are easy to clean (I throw them in the dishwasher -- mine doesn't have a heating unit in it to melt them) and the extra space keeps them a good useable size.

Anyway, there they are, labeled and dated and ready for the freezer. If vacuum sealed they should stay for 2+ years in the freezer. Having "only" picked 5 full grocery bags full of nettles (and drying 2 of them), we're almost out already. In my house at least, don't expect them to stay around too long.

In the 4th and final installment, I'll talk briefly about how I've used the fresh Nettles in cooking.



Enjoy storing up wild foods,

Bp

Nettle Time -- Part 2, Drying

In Nettle Time -- Part 1, I mentioned that these wild edibles are coming up right now all over the Pacific Northwest (and elsewhere), and gave a few tips about gathering. Now I'll talk about storage and use.

The most common way for people to store nettles is to dry them.

The equipment needed to dry nettles is minimal -- you could do it by hanging them over a line in a shady but well-circulated area, for instance. But this time of year the ambient humidity is so high that I would be concerned about mildew if you did it outside. If you dry them inside, make sure to hang them in an area that folks won't brush up against them as their stinging quality is still up and kicking throughout most of the process.

I chose the quickie route -- The Dessicator [hear as Monster Truck Rally announcer for full effect]. The reason I call my cheapo grocery store dehydrator The Dessicator is because driers like these seem best at absolutely desiccating something, as opposed to drying to a particular moisture level as is required of most dried fruits, fruit leathers, and jerky. But for drying the living hell out of things, it works great. I use it for seaweed, mushrooms, and nettles. No moisture subtlety needed, just dry the dickens out of it, and store.

One note on storage of dried nettles. Even when fully dried, the stingers (especially on the stems) can still be moderately active. Consider wearing gloves when packing up your dried nettles. The second your dried stuff hits hot water or cooking food, those needles will be safely de-activated, so no worries. If you are worried despite this assurance, clean the nettles of all stems, and then powder them with a few pulses in a food processor.


What to do with dried nettles? Well the most common answer is tea. For use in tea, folks tend to leave the nettles in dried form and not powdered. Folks use nettle tea not only as a general health tonic (lots of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C and Iron), but to help with allergies. I even have a friend who is serving it to her dog for allergies, and it's working quite well. There are plenty of sources of information on the intartubes regarding nettles as medicine and I'll leave that conversation to those folks.

Another use is as a flavor and nutritional supplement in food. In this case, the powdered form is preferred. You can add the powder directly to food, or create a condiment out of it. I know of folks who use it in soups and stews, but also in smoothies, and sprinkled on top of just about anything that could use a fresh, "green" flavor.

You can make a Gomashio-type condiment by mixing the powder with salt, or even better add freshly-roasted sesame seeds to the salt and nettles and grind the mix up a bit in a mortar and pestle. Best done when the seeds are still warm, it blends the flavor nicely. In this manner the nettles are replacing the seaweed normally used.

Next episode will cover freezing, methods and uses.

Enjoy free wild spring produce,

Bp

Nettle Time -- Part 1

Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica)are some of the easiest to identify, most common, tastiest and most nutritious wild edibles in the Pacific N.W. And they're starting to pop right now.

In Washougal, Washington on the shores of the Columbia, the nettles I was picking late last week (with the help of Farmer Theo and Ms. Sara) were almost all under 1' tall. That's primo size for eating.

Identifying nettles is pretty easy, especially if you aren't afraid of a little pain. Look for herbs in wet forest ground that look like mint or verbena, and touch it with, say, your arm. If it flares up and stings and makes a rash where it touched you, bingo. A less painful way to I.D. them involves talking to experts and/or bringing them into the forest with you.

I always use gloves when I collect them, for obvious reasons. If you want to return to the same collection spot, cut them above a growth node and they'll come back bushy and tender in a few weeks from the same stalk.

There are many ways to use nettles, from cooking and eating as is, drying and using as a supplement or tea, and even making cordage. I'll talk about how we're going to be using them this season in later episodes of this post.

Enjoy eating something that formerly was just something you avoided when hiking,

Bp

Gigundo mussel photo

Very... tired... must... nap... before... class.

But here's a photo of the big mussel of the day, more pictures and such later on.

Enjoy getting out, even when it's ill-advised,

Bp

Mega low tides inspire truancy, quest for aphrodisiacs

I'm ditching a class tomorrow, because the tide is going to be SO DAMNED LOW. I can't resist the chance to go out and walk up to rocks that I've always admired from shore, check out the wildlife on the rocks, and gather up some mussels, sea vegetables, and razor clams. Just bought my clam gun, and I'm going to head out at 0-dark-hundred tomorrow morning, license in hand, bucket, knife, scissors, and gun in tow.

Of course most shellfish are considered aphrodisiacs -- I need that like I need a hole in the head, but I thought it would be good to mention. Be warned, Portland.

Enjoy geeking out so hard you miss class,

Bp

[photo via Wikicommons]