Category Archives: Cooking

Morel Mushrooms — a Novice No More

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Bonnie Neidhart and son Paul NeidhartRecently, we were invited to spend the day with long-time good friends Bonnie and Jim Neidhart at their son Paul’s 60+ acre woodland paradise in SE Ohio that he owns with his wife Amy. That’s Bonnie and her son Paul in the photo to the left.

Paul has a degree in botany (with a special interest in mushrooms) from Ohio University. If there ever was an expert to learn from, he is the one. We were told that the morel mushrooms had just started emerging the week before and they had saved some big ones for us to find.  We were so excited.

At first, I couldn’t see them.  Paul and Amy were spotting them immediately — and these were the BIG ones!  Later, we started finding much, much smaller ones — maybe just a few inches tall — but I was improving.  Amy said sometimes it helps to actually get down on the ground and look for the white stems.  Also, she said that they like disturbed soil.  And, indeed, we did find a number of morels around spots where they had previously cleared out brush.  I later read that morels often have bumper crops in areas that has been burned.

Morel MushroomsMy final triumph was actually coming across a new patch on their property that they had never explored before and finding 10-12 morel mushrooms there!

The two bowls to the left show our day’s bounty.  Note the differences in sizes.

Morel Mushrooms - Rinsing in Salt WaterSince I had never prepared morels for eating, I was all eyes when Paul went through the preparation.

Morel Mushrooms - Cutting in HalfStep 1:  Paul first soaked the morels in salt water.  This was to flush out any critters that might be inside.

Step 2:  Then he cut the morel mushrooms in half.  Don’t skip this step, because even then, he found a slug in one and a dozen or so ants in another.

Step 3:  Heat some olive oil in a skillet on medium heat and toss in the cut mushrooms.

Step 4:  As they cook, you’ll notice moisture coming out.  Paul likes them to be less watery, so he continued to let them cook.

Step 5:  Perfect!  The moisture is gone and they are nicely browned.

So… is the flavor of morels worthy of all the hype?  Yes.  Definitely yes.  Good bye button mushrooms.  Hello morels.

Morel Mushrooms - Cooking Step 1Here is a good website to learn more about morels.

Thank you Bonnie, Jim, Paul and Amy (and kidlets Maya and Ethan) – for memories that will last a lifetime.  Life is an Adventure!

Morel Mushrooms - Cooking Step 2 Morel Mushrooms - Cooking Step 3 Enjoying the Fruits of Our Labor

Never Forget that Key Ingredient in a Recipe Again

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Recipes

Recipes (Photo credit: pirate johnny)

Don’t you hate it when you are missing a key ingredient for a recipe that you had your heart set on making?  Here’s a tip that will keep your favorite recipes at your fingertips, especially when you are at the grocery store.  It also saves gas by eliminating extra trips to the store.

If you are like me, it often is hard to remember all the ingredients for a recipe from memory, especially when I am at the grocery store and decide, on the spur-of-the-moment, to cook something special for dinner that night because something is on sale or looks especially fresh or just came in to season.

Here is a tip that I use so my favorite recipes are always at my fingertips.  Many of you have smartphones, so this will work for you too.  I have been posting a number of my favorite recipes to this blog so that I can access them from my iphone no matter where I am.  Most of you won’t have a blog, but you could do the same thing with Facebook.  Here is a link to a recipe for Crinkle Top Cookies that I posted on a Garden Club Facebook page.  http://www.facebook.com/RedbudGardenClub#!/RedbudGardenClub/posts/297441007043200

Another variation of this is to use your smartphone to look up a recipe (in general through Google) just to doublecheck that you have the main ingredients covered.

White Chicken Chili Recipe

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The Great Chicken War!

The Great Chicken War! (Photo credit: dog.happy.art)

This award-winning white chicken chili recipe is delicious and easy to make, too.  It won first place in a recent chili cook-off contest at a friend of mine’s neighborhood party.

White Chicken Chili

  • 6 chicken breasts (boneless & skinless)
  • 5 c. chicken broth
  • 4 c. medium salsa
  • 2 48 oz.  jars great northern beans
  • 2 c mozzarella cheese (part-skim)

Boil chicken breasts in broth; remove from broth; shred while still warm (using two forks).   Put chicken back in broth, add salsa and beans.  Simmer.  Add cheese 30 minutes before serving.

 

What Are Your Holiday Traditions?

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Bowl of Mixed Nuts for the HolidaysWhenever I get together with a group of friends around the holidays, I always ask them what their holiday traditions are.  It is a great way to get to know them better and it is fun to learn what is the same and what is different from the way I was brought up.

Recently I was at the grocery store and saw a bag of mixed nuts with the shells still on.  It reminded me of something I had not thought of for years.  My mother had a wooden bowl, which I still have, that she would put the mixed nuts in and we would crack them with the same simple metal nutcracker that you see in the photo.  We would leave the cracked shells in the bowl, for convenience, and clean it out every so often.  Needless to say, I bought a bag of nuts.

What are your holiday traditions?

Life is an Adventure.

 

Black Bean Soup

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natural chicken broth

natural chicken broth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I got this recipe from a TV series I discovered called Drop 5 Pounds on The Cooking Channel.  It is flavorful, easy to make, healthy, and I finally get to use my immersion blender for what it was intended to do.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup salsa
  • 1 pinch allspice
  • Two 15-to-19-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth

DIRECTIONS

In a large nonstick saucepan, combine the salsa and allspice. Cook over medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir in the black beans and chicken broth; raise the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes. Use an immersion blender or potato masher to coarsely mash the beans in the pot.

Serving size per 1 cup: 240 calories

Make it a Drop 5 Meal by adding:
A dollop of reduced-fat sour cream on top, and serve with 2 cups mixed greens tossed with 10 pumps spray dressing, 1 ounce baked tortilla chips (around 17 chips) and a pear. 513 complete meal calories.