Mad about Mushrooms . . .

We and the Wall Street Journal See Signs of Spring: Wild Mushrooms are Back!

Spring seems to have arrived with a fury this year, bringing with it torrential downpours and hail storms.  Yet, there's a sweeter side to this spring as well.  There are bunches of wild spring onion blossoms swaying in the breezes, stately wild iris lining the old roads, clusters of pink rhodies and of wine-colored trillium, with more blossoming plants seeming to arrive daily.

Can morels and other spring mushrooms be fruiting?  Perhaps.  The southern Oregon coast mushroom club, the Wild Rivers Mushrooms Club, is planning morel huntings excrusions in the weeks to come, and we've been hunting, although unsuccessfully, for giant puffballs on Mt. Hood and in the Pendleton area.   Tizzzy, that great mushroom gatherer from Yamhill County, reports that he found a morel at about 1200 feet elevation in the coast range in last year's clearcut...very encouraging news indeed!  

We enjoy collecting hellvellas in the spring on Mt. Hood.

April, 2010's Recipe of the Month: Pasta with Mushrooms

We love the television cooking show, America's Test Kitchen - it's fun to watch while running on the treadmill and the recipes are great!  We particularly liked the deceptively simple Pasta with Mushrooms not only because the intense flavor of the sauteed mushrooms created a woodsy, full-flavored pasta dish but also because it easily became a substantial main entree with the addition of shrimp or scallops.  

The gummy gooseberry bush with its sticky leaves, threatening thorns,
and fuchsia-like blossoms was a delightful find this spring.