Most recent mushroom finds.

 Zeller's bolete (apparently edible, but the ones we found were inedible because they were full of maggots. I know, it sounds appetizing doesn't it?)

 Helvella lacunosa (I think)

I had to ask my stepdad, pw, about this one. He's much better at identifying than I am. I wasn't having much luck using my reference book, Mushrooms Demystified.

 I was also so startled by its appearance that I wondered if it was a plant and not a type of fungi.

 Our most recent collection of chanterelles.

We can't seem to get enough of them. Is it possible that I find them tastier this year compared to last?

Shrooming on Thanksliving

We decided that we would put together a Thanksgiving meal (or as I'm calling it Thanksliving) since the flavours of the season are in abundance. In our fresh box (organic produce delivery) we received fresh cranberries, brussel sprouts, and parsnips. So we thought, lets just pick up a Tofurky and make it official, but we would need some mushroom gravy, and some fresh mushrooms for it.

We headed into the woods, and went to our usual spot to find some chanterelles, but they weren't as abundant as we've seen them before, and we have already picked in that area; however, we did find some. db found most of them actually because I was busy taking pictures of all of the other mushrooms I was spotting. So there are no chanterelle pictures here, but all the other mushrooms that are a mystery to me.

 These are absolutely everywhere right now. I haven't identified them...yet.

 I'd really like to know what these are. They seem so unusual to me because of the underside.

 And this is the forest where all of those mushrooms were spotted.

Mushrooms again?

October is turning into the month of the chanterelle for us. db and I have been dry sauteeing them and then incorporating them into whatever meal we happen to be preparing that night.

We did give some chanterelles to our neighbours upstairs. After all they served us a nice snack of freshly made samosas.  

Here's a ring of chanterelles around our Sunday night pasta. They were very complimentary to the tomato sauce.

Well as it turns out I missed the VeganMofo deadline for submitting my blog address. Oh well. I won't be listed with the hundreds of other VeganMofoers, but I'll keep VeganMofoing through October anyway.

It's turning out to be MushMofo, the Mushroom Month of Food. We went out yesterday into the woods. pw came over from Nanaimo. We picked him up at the ferry and headed out to Golden Ears provincial park. We went there in the summer with my brother and his girlfriend, and the woods left an impression on me, especially when we came to the end of the trail out into the UBC research forest. I thought it'd be a good place to return to; an old growth forest full of possibilities and hardly viewed by others seemed right. Well, it didn't turn out as I'd hoped. Plus, the forest was so dry. We still haven't had a great amount of rain. The inedible mushrooms we did find were quite dried out.

db found some Angel Wings. They are like Oyster mushrooms. They were quite abundant in that area. After filling a paper bag half way with Angel Wings, we decided to head back to our house and the woods just behind our house. After all, db and I did find chanterelles there just last week. We had a little rain this week, but not much. However, we decided to head into the woods near our place.

We saw a lot of silver tufts throughout the park. This was the underside of an uprooted tree. 

pw liked the forest right away. He said it looked promising. We tried a few areas and then headed in the general direction that db and I had gone before. It didn't take long before the first chanterelles were found. 

It looks like a woodpecker has been working hard on this log. I get a little distracted when I'm supposed to be searching for mushrooms. 

We must have spent an hour in one area, searching it pretty thoroughly and filling our bags. pw saw another area he wanted to check out so we headed in that direction. Um...then he said he was starting to get a little disoriented. I knew I was for sure,  but was pretty certain we'd find our way out if we walked towards the sun. That's easier said than done when you're just beating around in the bush. I admit I got a little panicky, only because we were losing light.

We did find our way and as always we weren't that far from a trail that led out to the main road. Phew!

That night db and I cleaned up the mushrooms, that took longer than it did to collect them.

here's how we started

Cutting and brushing, cutting and brushing, we worked through our bags of mushrooms. It gave us a chance to make sure we really had all chanterelles as well. We did. There was one or two we were uncertain about so we tossed them.

 

This is what we ended up with! Chanterelle heaven. 

Guess what's for dinner. Baked squash stuffed with a mushroom rice filling, served with wild mushroom gravy. More photos to come.