The previous two OITF dinners were amazing. We went to the first one of the season at Fogline Farm. One mid-season at Everett Family Farm and ended with the last dinner of the year at Pie Ranch.

The event started with a reception, appetizers and wine, as usual and,as usual, everything was lovely. The wine was provided by John Locke of Birichino Wines.

After the introductions and explanations, we headed into the hills for some fungus foraging. My husband found two porcini and got to proudly show them off to the group and explain how he found them (in the insanely dry forest!).

After the hike straight up the hill and back down again, we were STARVING! We trekked back to the barn and found a place to park it for the night and enjoy the amazing spread. We sat next to a wonderful couple from Texas who are retired and they plan their vacations around OITF events. That will be us! At least I hope so!

All the dishes were amazing but the highlight had to be the chanterelle and cornbread. It was so good in fact that people asked Chef Ryan Harris of Station 1 Restaurant in Woodside (the evening’s chef) for the recipe. He obliged and posted it on his Facebook page!

I can’t wait for the 2012 season!

What I had no problem finding at all was chanterelles. I went out for about 30 minutes and came back with close to 10 pounds. I went out the next day and came back with a few more. I sure wish those were dryable! I know I can sautee and freeze them but it’s just not the same flavor. Nevertheless, we ate like kings…whatever kings ate chanterelles!

We had Thanksgiving dinner that was very similar to previous years: Chanterelle Stuffing and Roasted chicken then Warm Mushroom Salad the next day. Can’t beat it.

Prepping potatoes for the campfire

There’s no reason not to eat well when you’re camping. I packed my CSA and garden veggies, chicken and eggs up and hauled them to Lassen National Park for a weekend camping trip. Before we left I cut the chicken into pieces and put it in a ziploc with wine wine and herbs so it was all ready to go.

Grilling chicken and potatoes

I always pack my knives with me wherever I go so it’s quick and easy to prepare everything. The potatoes go into foil with onions, garlic, butter, salt and pepper.

Campfire dinner: Chicken, potatoes and homegrown tomatoes

The tomatoes don’t need anything but salt! When they’re straight from the garden, they need no additional flavoring.

Searing albacore

When we go to my dad’s cabin, we cook many nights over the campfire but we also have a propane-fueled kitchen so I can get even fancier with my dishes. We had seared albacore with an orange-reduction sauce.

Steaming clams in white wine and garlic

Alongside the albacore were clams that I steamed with white wine, garlic, butter and parsley.

Grilling the one porcini we found

Every year we go to to the cabin we find ONE porcini. Just one. Every year. It’s wonderful and frustrating at the same time. It gives us the hope we’ll find more and we never do. Unfortunately there are cows that are left to roam wild and they eat the mushrooms! I bet that beef tastes fantastic.

Gorgeous grilled porcini

We sliced and grilled the porcini over the campfire, just like we do every Thanksgiving trek. It’s the only way to eat porcini as far as I’m concerned.

Next time you head into the woods, don’t pack trail mix and hot dogs. There’s no need. If you prep beforehand, you can have just as wonderful a meal as you would at home….plus, everything tastes better in the mountains. I have no scientific evidence for this but it is true. Try it!

Hunting these is so different than hunting porcini–which are so huge sometimes you can see them while driving by.  My husband’s first porcini was a drive-by find!  Or hunting chanterelles which is like an Easter egg hunt–pretty little (or big!) orange beauties peaking out from under the leaves.  Both of those mushrooms you can hunt from a relative distance, they stand out.  Not black trumpets. They blend, they hide in the shadows.

My apologies for the quality of this pictures, it is from my phone, but that will just make the challenge that much more fun. Pretend it’s blurry because you’re foraging in the rain and your vision is obscured by it.

Now, find the trumpet:

Did you find it? It’s a lone little creature, not hanging out with any of its friends.

Do you see it?

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Does this help?

They are well worth the search. I know, finding it in the picture does not help you taste them but maybe it will inspire you to find a local mushroom group or foray and search for youself!! Just a disclaimer here, if you’ve never foraged for wild mushrooms, don’t do it alone and randomly eat things you find it the woods.  I don’t want any of my readers to die from hardcore food porn attempts.  I want you to live on to eat well!!

I will be sad when this season comes to an end since I’ve found some good new trumpet patches this year! I will just have to enjoy them while they last.

Unfortunately, I usually don’t have my real camera with me either. So the photos are less than perfect but these lovely little fungi were just popping through the green moss (is that moss?) that was growing on the hillside. I don’t know what it is but I never find trumpets on flat land, it’s always somewhere that I have to perch precariously on a hillside and try not to slide all the way down it!

I did pretty well yesterday. Enough for this weekend’s frittata at least!

Update:

I cooked up the black trumpets the same way I did last time but had many more to savor today!

I put them in olive oil with one small minced clove of garlic over medium heat and let them cook off their water.

I think the best way to enjoy trumpets, or really any tasty wild mushroom, is simply on a piece of buttered french bread. Well, I didn’t have any french bread!  So atop a frittata they went again.

I don’t know if these are one of my favorites because I get so few of them or not. I’m torn between trumpets and porcini as my favorite. My son said this morning that his favorites are grilled porcini and black trumpets (he’s 5). I think I agree!

I went for a hike, knowing there was a chanterelle patch in the area but really not wanting to find any. I’m done with those for the year (I found two anyway, even though i wasn’t looking for them!).  I was really on the hunt for black trumpets. It looked like good terrain for them, I was convinced they were there.

So, like staring at one of those 3D prints with the hidden pictures, I stopped and stared at the hillside. Slowly, these leaf shadows become mushrooms before my eyes. Success!

Unfortunately, I scoured the area and only found a small handful of these black beauties but that’s fine by me. I’d rather have a few than none, they are truly one of my favorites.  Nom nom.

And since I had so few and wanted to savor them as much as possible, I sauteed them in just olive oil and shallots and put them atop my Sunday food-church frittata. Sooooo yummy. I also added the two little chanterelles I found just because, what else could I do? I couldn’t let them go bad.  I need to head out and find more trumpets, this whet my appetite for them, they are such a wonderful little fungus!

I made the lovely salad I’d made at Thanksgiving and the “To Die For” meal in December. I tossed the chanterelles in olive oil.

Grilled them until nice and brown.

Tossed the salad with shallot vinaigrette. Topped that with green lentils cooked in chicken stock. And the lovely surprise chanterelles on top. Oh, and bacon.

It was pristine. Not a bug in site. Gorgeous.

We savoured it, it may be the last we get of the season!

We grilled the stalk and sauteed the cap with some garlic and tossed it with farmer’s market fresh pasta.

Pork bacon?…pshaw…Turkey bacon? No way! FUNGUS bacon is the way to go!! (grilled until almost crispy…drroooolll)

We went back to one of our spots thinking we’d probably struck out but I stumbled upon two pretty little friends. The caps were destined for the dehydrator but the stalks were gorgeous grillers.

Having exhausted the porcini stash, we still had an insane number of chanterelles to consume. Along with Thanksgiving leftovers, we had chanterelles cooked in butter on toast. I felt a bit Top Chef-like serving chanterelles and bread two ways (on toast and in stuffing). ;-)

Day three — or was it day four — I decided to venture out into the chanterelle territory again. Who knew I missed a whole patch of them!? I had to think of another way to cook them. I thought, “I wonder if they grill well?” Since it’s my favorite way to eat porcini we decided to try it. It is now my favorite way to cook chanterelles too!!

If you have access to any of these lovely golden fungi, you must make this recipe.

Spinach tossed w/ dressing of:
Chopped shallots
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Cook french green lentils in chicken stock w/ a clove of garlic

Slice each chanterelle and half, toss with olive oil and pepper and grill. I used 3 large mushrooms for 2 people.

Chop and cook bacon to make lovely little bacon bits.

Assemble into the most beautiful warm mushroom salad ever created. Spinach first, then lentils, the shroomies, then bacon, then love….love the whole time actually, including with every fabulous bite.