Mad about Mushrooms . . .

July 2012's Recipe of the Month: Pepin's Roast Sausage with Potatoes

Just by chance the other day, I happened to catch a portion of Jacques Pepin's cooking show on PBS, More Fast Food My Way.  What good fortune!  He was preparing a sausage roll, laden with pistachios and dried mushrooms - what an interesting combination.  I soon discovered it's a very tasty combination as well!

Instead of cooking the sausage in a saucepan as the recipe called for, we opted to smoke cook it on our Weber gas grill over indirect heat for about an hour.  As you'd expect, the mesquite smoke gently penetrated the sausage during the slow cooking process, and helped to create an even more remarkable dish. 

In the unlikely event that there are leftovers (well, there's always a chance!), slices of the sausage roll are also good at room temperature, on crackers or toast.

Pepin's sausage roll was even more delicious with a light mesquite smoke. 

Springtime Mushrooming and Photographing with the Taylors

How is spring mushrooming in our neck of the woods?  Unfortunately, our 2,000+ mile odyssey this spring pretty much removed us from the hearty group of springtime mushroomers.  While our journey was great and seeing old friends was wonderful, we feel the loss of hours spent in the woodlands seeking out morels and boletes.

Where have we been these last couple of weeks?  Well, it seems everywhere.  First, there was a workshop sponsored by SAAL in Monmouth to help organize VOICE, an organization whose mission is to engage communities by advocating for the rights of people with developmental disabilities.  From there we headed to Long Beach, Washington for a couple of days of vacation and to attend the awards ceremony at my old high school across the river in Warrenton, Oregon.  For the last 20+ years Steven and I, along with  my sister's family, have presented a small scholarship there.  It's in memory of and honor of my parents, who were long-time residents of this small northern Oregon coastal town.  This year, three outstanding graduating seniors received the award, tying a record.  After the event, we were off on a scenic drive up thru the Canadian coastal mountains to the town of Oyama in central British Columbia for a great, albeit short, visit with dear friends, Jim and Judy. 

We were inspired by Steve Trudell's class.