Spring mushrooms

A few weeks ago I got the urge to hunt morels.  People were posting pictures on Facebook left and right, raving about their delicious, meaty un-meat meals.  I wanted to find a morel.  A few friends wanted to go disc golfing at a local course a few days later, and one had seen morels on his last trip there. 

I was going to find a morel.

While they played, I tromped through the woods, determined to find some glorious mushrooms.  Let's be honest, I had no idea what I was doing.  (Something about looking for dead trees, I think?)  Needless to say, I wound up with mosquito bites, and no mushrooms. 

I joined back up with my group and shortly after, my friend Molly spotted a morel, in plain view, directly off a path near a fairway.  It was kind of like a scene from a movie where a beam of light lands on a treasure chest- just a mushroom popping out of the green in plain view of anyone who'd walk by. 

We investigated the area with our group of five and scrounged up over twenty mushrooms!  Behold:

We looked around through the rest of walk, but only found one more mushroom.  At the end of it all, we split the morels two ways (one of our friends already had a bunch at home that needed to be eaten) between two couples.  Mark and I cooked them up with butter and garlic.  OMG.  One of the best things I've ever eaten.  I get it.  I get the hunt (for vegetarians!), the scarcity... the free (delicious!) food!!  I think our morel season is over now, but I'm anxious to try again next year!

Home-dried Thai chili peppers

Recently we went to the Hmong market near our house for some produce.  We weren't sure what we were looking for (aside from some basil), but found a huge cup full of Thai chili peppers for $5.  They're less spicy than a habanero (which we usually use for cooking) but hotter than a jalapeno, serrano, or cayenne.  Since we couldn't use them quickly enough fresh, we decided to dry them. 

I tied them with string and hung them on the porch.  This picture shows just a few of the peppers; the string was about 5 feet long, plus a few added strings hanging down- probably around 100 peppers altogether. 

We left the string hanging for a month to be safe, and the dry weather we've had the summer helped speed the process.  The peppers slowly shriveled and lost their tenderness.  After we thought they seemed ready I took the string down and popped the peppers off their stems.

We put most in a jar for later.

We took the ones Mark's holding in the bowl and ground them with a mortar and pestle for cooking. It's like homemade crushed red pepper... but better!  And spicier!

I can't wait to use these peppers in our cooking!   

Home meals of the week #22

Nothing too exciting this past week, aside from keeping up with cooking even being back at work for the fall.  (I do hope to share a really great recipe for breakfast on the go very soon though!)

Green beans with baked potatoes, peppers and onions.  We've really been loving eating fresh green beans from friends and farmer's markets; this week's post really reflects that!

Super good soup with a broth Mark made.  I really can't tell you what's in the broth, because I had no part in it's creation, but the rest of the soup is jalapeños, tomatoes, onion, bean sprouts, potatoes, and rice noodles.  Yum!

Then, a pasta tossed with green beans, red onions, and a store-bought red pepper pesto.  We generally don't buy sauces and the like, but this kind looked good, so we gave it a try.  Unfortunately, it is very oily, so I doubt we'll buy it again.  We are making a healthy step to decreasing the amount of pasta we cook and adding more veggies to the mix, or on the side.  I feel much better full off a meal of veggies and pasta, instead of just pasta!

And another shot at pasta with that sauce.  This time we threw in some tomatoes and herbs from the garden, which kept it fresh, but again too oily.

Well, be back soon, and like I said, I really hope to share my awesome breakfast recipe soon!  Trust me, it's been a life (and time!) saver this past week before work!

Home meals of the week #21

Somehow, after the serious slacking on cooking earlier in the summer, I now have an excess of meals to blog about!  Since my next few weeks will be pretty intense (starting my new job and all), I'll be staggering some of those meals out. 

So, first this week, stuffed zucchini.  Since we were still dealing with our overabundance of these guys in the garden, we were getting creative with our meals.  This was stuffed with ricotta and herbs and topped with roma tomatoes, mushrooms, and breadcrumbs.  I liked it, but I didn't love it.  It would have been better with a mix of ricotta and a more melty cheese and probably smaller servings; it was a HUGE zucchini. 

Baked green beans and potatoes.  Simple but yummy.  We tossed everything in olive oil and added some herbs: rosemary, cayenne, oregano and then baked.

Gnocchi with roma tomatoes and basil.  This gnocchi looks a little darker than normally, so we must have gotten a different variety, but honestly, I don't remember.

And finally, one of the last big weekday breakfasts of my summer: french toast.  I love when we get baguette that gets hard before we eat it all with cheese or hummus because that means the best french toast!  I soak the bread in a mix of egg whites, soy milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon before frying it up.  I also like to roast some walnuts or pecans in the pan for a few minutes.  I top the toast off with the nuts, butter, and some honey and it's the best!

Home meals of the week #20

And another successful week!

First, a noodle soup.  I simmered onion, mushrooms, tomato, ginger, garlic, basil, lemongrass, thai peppers, and oregano for a few hours to make a very flavorful veggie broth.  I strained everything out (nothing was really edible after cooking that long anyways), cooled it down, and added a few tablespoons of coconut milk.  Then later, we heated it up again with some rice noodles.  We chopped up fresh onions and mushrooms and put them in our bowls.  Then we poured the broth and noodles over so the veggies were warmed, but still fresh.  I was pretty proud of this meal.  It was simple, but extremely flavorful, and we both loved it!!

Salad.  I love big salads.  This one had greens, sprouts, blue cheese, onion, and cucumbers tossed with a chickpea/basil mixture that was originally going to be hummus, but we overfilled the food processor.

Mahi mahi with zucchini chips from our garden.  Some of the best fish I've ever had!

This was a variation of the zucchini we've been making so frequently.  This time we tried it with zucchini cut thinly to replace the noodles.  We actually used noodles for the first layer because we literally had two left.  Then we continued the other layers with the zucchini.  It was delicious!  It held together really well, and tasted great.  I'd definitely do it again when we have a surplus from our garden or recommend it to anyone else who wants to skip the noodles.  

So, another good week and hopefully not the last week of meals from our garden!

Home meals of the week #19

 Yay for consecutive weekly posting again!  And double yay for more veggies fresh from the garden!

Angel hair pasta with squash and tomato (both from the garden), pesto, and parmesan.  Super yummy and fresh!  I definitely notice the difference with our own veggies, compared to store-bought.  They're sun-ripened, soft but firm, and sweet.  True love. 

We have had a lot of very big (like foot long) zucchini to harvest, and have been thinking of creative ways to use it.  This soup was a super great idea that Mark had.  It may not look like much, but this variation of a recipe we've done before and it turned out great.  Basically, it's a puree of squash, onion, habanero, yogurt, roux, and garlic.  We topped it with more garden tomatoes and parmesan.  Mmm!

 
Lasagna twice.  We wound up with more tomatoes than we could eat, so we made pasta sauce a few times.  It was pretty darn delicious, if I don't say so myself.  We made small lasagna batches a few times with pretty similar ingredients: serrano and green peppers, zucchini, onion, and, of course, a cheesy mix of ricotta and mozzarellla balls.  We also got green beans from Mark's coworker's garden, and they were great!

And another soup.  This one may not have mush visual appeal, but it was very good.  A veggie broth with potatoes, corn, rice noodles, lots of spices and Sriracha on the top.  I definitely want to try more variations of this with more fresh veggies and maybe a splash of coconut milk.

Home meals of the week #18

Oh my, I've certainly been terrible about keeping up with my cooking posts these past few weeks.  For the record, we were just on a vacation, and since we've come home have seemed to have stuff going on constantly, but now I will be doing my best to get back to my regular posting. 

Up first, breakfast.  I've been trying to eat healthy and do the breakfast thing since I'm home for the summer.  Breakfast sandwiches are just about the best thing ever.  I made this one with a rosemary bun, egg whites, cheddar, onion, and avocado.  We have one of those tiny little pans for cooking a single egg, and it's perfectly sized for a little egg patty for a sandwich.  It looks like something from a restaurant!

And an egg white omelet with onions, parmesan, and tomatoes from the garden.  Also, rosemary potatoes.  Yum!

Ok, this is potentially the least healthy meal we've had in some time, but it was so good!  A big plate of mashed potatoes, cheese, and chives.

And then, some gnocchi with pesto, onions, tomatoes (from the garden), and squash blossoms (also from the garden!).  Super yummy and I love getting to eat things that we grew ourselves!

Well, I WILL be back next week with more food posts!

Home meals of the week #16 & #17

Finally, a decent amount of meals to show!  I'd say living with Mark is definitely going to improve my eating- both health- and quality-wise.  To be fair this is two whole weeks-worth of food.

Week one:

Salmon with garlic and green and red onions.  Corn on the side.

A random mish-mash of what we had in the fridge, the cupboard, and from the garden.  Bread, hummus, crackers, cucumbers, homemade salsa, and three kinds of cheese.  Simple, no cooking required, and delicious!

Salad with veggies from the garden!

This next week featured a lot of pasta and plates of stackable tapas-style meals.

Up first, veggie pasta with onions, asparagus, basil, roasted garlic, homemade pesto, and rosemary asiago on the top. So good!  Perfect combination of flavors.  I love roasting garlic and it's super easy:  peel the outer skin, cut the tips off the top of the cloves, rub the whole thing in olive oil, put a little piece of foil over the top, put on a baking tray, and bake for half an hour.  When it's done, pop the garlic (carefully) out of the remaining skin, and eat whole or spread on bread or crackers!


And here's our little plate of veggies from the fridge, Kashi crackers, and hummus.  Fresh, healthy, and perfect for patio dining.

Another plate of veggie pasta- same as the last, minus the basil and asparagus.

Here's our first plate of yumminess from the farmers' market:

 

We got rosemary baguette, chives, sheep bleu cheese, and peppered smoked trout.  The onions were ours.  It was so phenomenal!  The cheese was very strong, but like nothing I've ever tasted and the trout was fantastic.  This was the kind of meal I could eat every single day.  

The next day Mark made these little sandwiches with the leftovers, plus other stuff in our fridge.  We ate it midway through my gardening rampage; I was digging out old shrubs and tilling a huge chunk of garden.  What a perfect break from the heat!

And last, a plate of more food from the market.  Tomato basil pasta tossed in hummus with roasted garlic and chives.  Fresh potatoes with rosemary.  We got a giant plant from the market and I can't wait to continue cooking with it (and smelling it every time I'm on the porch!).

Yay for tons of cooking!  Hoping for another great week, and that the heat wave doesn't make standing near a stove too intolerable!

Home meals of the week #15

We were camping for a few days this past week, so most of the food I'm posting is outdoors, not at home, and some is pre-packaged, but I'll still consider it cooking since it takes more effort without a kitchen.  


Mark has this handy little camping stove that just attaches to a canister of propane and a pan sits on top.  It's been pretty useful so far this summer!

We made oatmeal (out of a package) for breakfast.  Yeah, not the most cooking effort, but totally yummy and simple before going out hiking.  Also, check out my camping dish set!  It's classic and perfect to take along on a little trip.

Veggie burgers with mushrooms and avocado.  Not my favorite meal.  I really like my spicy black bean burgers, so these didn't really do it for me.  Plus, I'm sort of mushroom-ed out and in addition to the ones on the burger, there were more in the burger as well.  Meh.

And some very classy outdoor cooking...

Gnocchi with mushrooms, basil, and onions, sauteed in butter!  A very impressive camping meal, in my opinion.  The gnocchi was actually much smaller than usual and had a clever little name to go along with it, but I don't remember it.  This was such an awesome meal.  Gnocchi is pretty much always great- I don't think I've ever not liked it. 

And once we were back to civilization we made pasta.  This was tri-colored veggie pasta, so healthier, perhaps?  We added sun dried tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, onions, and stewed tomatoes, but it was surprisingly tasteless.  Sort of a bummer, but the sweet potato fries on the side were great!

And now, I'll admit now, that I probably won't be cooking much over the next two weeks- it's all moving and packing, a music festival, job interview, and some other stuff.  In fact the summer may be a bit sketchy from here through late July with our festival and vacation schedule, so you'll be seeing more music and exploring!

Home meals of the week #14

Well, we had a decent week of cooking.  Once again, not as much as I'd like, but I think summer cooking can be difficult.  You go out to do things and there just happens to be a restaurant with a patio nearby, serving up cold brews and summer yummies.  At least that's how it feels to me.  So here's what we did this week...


The other night I said I was craving fish, so we made salmon with asparagus.  Mark wasn't sure about the fish when we got it home, but once it was cooked, we gobbled it up.  We didn't even take it out of the foil!

Now,  as you are seeing, I'm trying to throw in the occasional human shot with these foods photos so you see we're really cooking this stuff.  Do you like Mark's giant mug?

We made smoothies after we got back from a bike ride yesterday.  Banana, strawberry, pineapple, and granola.  Yum!  So refreshing after a ride on a very hot day.  P.S. I think he's the cutest. 

 
This may be a salad, but it's not just any salad- it's partially from our garden!  Spinach and peapods fresh from outside with radishes, onion, and olive oil.  We also had some homemade hummus and veggie chips.

And now, these cookies. 

They are healthy, really!  And they were so good I made them twice.  The second batch had granola, as you might be able to tell.  The only ingredients in the recipe were chickpeas, honey, vanilla (I got to use my homemade vanilla for the first time!), peanut butter, baking powder, and chocolate chips.  Yes, I realize chocolate isn't super healthy, but I think the other ingredients make up for it... plus, it's gluten free for any folks who need that and can easily be altered for vegans with agave instead of honey!  Try this recipe, seriously!


So, the start of another week and I'll be trying very hard to cook at home.  What do you like to cook during the summer?