Deconstructed vegan sushi bowl with wild mushrooms. Gluten-freewildcrafted food. Foraging recipe.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays. With such an abundance of wild winter mushrooms in the woods this year, I feel like I've already unwrapped tons of presents. I've found nearly 10lbs of one of my favorites: Pleurotus ostreatus, aka the winter oyster mushroom! Oyster mushrooms are found in temperate regions, and even in the tropics, world-wide. They are fairly easy to identify, have medicinal qualities, and frequently fruit in abundance, making them a great wild food. And, of course, you don't have to forage for them, you can get them at almost any market!

Foraged Ramp Pakoras with Tomato Onion Chutney

Apparently this is the first Indian dish I have made for this site, which is strange as Indian is actually the cuisine I prepare most often, about once a week. Indian food is great, especially if you like vegetarian. It can seem daunting to start preparing Indian cuisine, because of the long list of spices and seemingly difficult ingredients, but it's well worth it. And you can get everything you need in one trip to an Indian market. The spices keep for a while, as do things like gluten-free besan (chickpea/garbanzo flour) and basmati rice. Plus the seasonings used, like ginger and turmeric, are incredibly good for you--we are only just starting to fully understand all the health benefits.

Vegetarian Buffalo "Chicken" Mushroom

Buffalo "Chicken" mushrooms are the perfect wild food to bring to your next World Cup, or other sporting event, party. As a foraged, vegetarian take on the popular chicken wing, they are tasty, quick to make, and very approachable to people not used to wild foods.

Laetiporus cincinnatus (the white chicken mushroom)
grows in "rosettes" at the bases of trees.

Plus, the chicken mushroom itself is abundant, often very large (great for party food), and easy to ID, which helps ease the mind of anyone who is mycophobic (afraid of wild mushrooms).

It looks like 2014 is going to be another banner year for Laetiporus growth, especially Laetiporus cincinnatus, the so-called "white chicken" (because it has a white, as opposed to yellow, underside). So go out and hike--the bright orange colors will jump out at you, if you are observant! Enjoy nature, and bring back a fun treat for yourself and all your friends.

Foraged Recipe: Vegetarian "Chicken" Mushroom Tsukune

It has been forever since I have blogged. I have been feeling really down for the past month and more, in part because of things like work, but also because I have been just feeling very run down. I have every hope that things will turn around within the next few months, however, and I am trying to stay upbeat. My wonderful (in terms of picture--not performance) camera is also on the fritz, again, so that isn't helping. It seems to preferentially like to fail in the field, where I can't immediately address the issue. I also have the world's cheapest phone, so my camera phone pics have been less than stellar.

Back in the spring I predicted that this would be an insane year for the Chicken Mushroom, or Sulfur Shelf, Laetiporus sulphureus. And indeed, it has been. . .for everyone else. Somehow, throughout all of September, I have managed to just miss every single one of my chicken mushroom patches, and shown up a few days to a week late, to find a rotting, buggy mess. I missed out on easily over 100lbs of choice mushrooms this year, just from going to the wrong spots on the wrong days. It's a shame, because, in addition to being delicious, chicken mushrooms are extremely versatile.

Case in point: easily 30+ lbs of mushroom that was decayed
and full of bugs, and there was more on the other side of the log

A little old and dried out, and the edges needed
to be trimmed--but at least it wasn't buggy.
(shot with my phone's camera)

Anyway, last Sunday I found a smallish haul of Chickens. They were a couple of days past their prime, somewhat dried out, and with the edges starting to mush. Any other year, I would have passed them by. This year though, I was desperate. At least, since this is October, they hadn't gotten buggy yet, and simply needed to be revitalized. I was determined NOT to be disappointed, and decided to view the somewhat dried out mushrooms as a challenge.

I am glad I did, as this dish proved to be just what I needed to cheer myself up--easily rivals buffalo "chicken" mushroom for my favorite dish with this fungus.

Foraged Japanese Knotweed & Ramp Sushi with Garlic Mustard "Wasabi" Recipe

Beautiful, isn't it?

This dish came about a bit by accident. My husband loves to make sushi, and he does a fantastic job. We had some ramps, and decided to use them in place of scallions.

Then I thought of modern fusion sushi dishes, that use cucumber, rice wraps, etc. in place of nori. I really wanted to try it with ramps, since I love new ways to use them raw--besides the ubiquitous "slice and toss into salads". Raw ramps have an intense oniony sweetness, sweeter than the newest, youngest pearl onions, so sweet as to be almost berry-like.

The only thing better than one wild ingredient is two wild ingredients, and my thoughts immediately turned to knotweed. After all, it's Japanese, right? Get it? See what I did there? I crack me up.

Finally, most of the wasabi we get in the States is just colored horseradish anyway, and what foraged item tastes like horseradish? Yup, garlic mustard root.

So all the ideas flew together pretty quick, and I ran out to the park on my lunch break to gather the knotweed and garlic mustard (we did a ramps trip earlier this week).

One word of caution: you really have to enjoy the taste of raw knotweed to like this recipe, but if you do, then the crunchy tartness of the knotweed, mixed with the sweet oniony-ness of the ramps and the stickiness of the rice is really, really good. Alternatively, you could use pickled or blanched knotweed, for a milder flavor and softer texture.

Foraged Garlic Mustard Gyoza Recipe

 I am not lying when I say that my garlic mustard gyoza are better than any wonton/gyoza/potsticker I have had anywhere, ever! (But I might be a bit biased by creative pride)

Garlic Mustard is probably one of the easiest things to forage for, at least on the East Coast. It's pretty much everywhere, easy to identify, and has no toxic look-a-likes. It is an imported, invasive species, which is taking over and crowding out native species. You quite literally cannot over-harvest it.