Morels

Morel season is here! Went out foraging this morning and brought home just under three pounds of the beauties. Found both big fat yellow and smaller grayish morels today.

Morel, Morchella esculenta, is a sac fungi, distinguished by the honeycomb-like ridges and furrows of its cap and hollow body. They commonly grow along riverbanks and forests at the base of hardwood trees and shrubs such as privet.

When harvesting morels, I like to use a curved-blade knife to cut them close to the ground rather than pull them up because pulling them can damage the mycelium and hurt the next cycle of fruiting. Further, when harvesting morels, it's good practice to try to leave some behind, both for the deer and also for the propagation of future morels. If we pick every one that we see, we leave none to release spores and reproduce and eventually a patch of morels might disappear. Often, though, there will be enough older morels around that have begun to decay that you can collect the younger fresh ones and the patch will go on to produce next year's bounty.

This is me holding some of the morels I found today! Side note, the shirt I'm wearing is one I got from participating last year in a march to raise awareness of the approximately 22 veterans who take their lives each day. It's tragic and needs more focus and attention. For more on this, please visit https://www.22toomany.com/.

The way I like to prepare morels is to clean them, of course, wash thoroughly and get all the slugs and ants and spiders out of the crevices, cut them in half and rinse off any sand that might be up inside or along the grooves. Sauté them in an ample amount of butter, add a little salt and pepper and cook to a thorough crisp. You want them browned completely, cooked through, they should have a bit of a crunch to them. We really prefer them this way as opposed to any other way, they're not nearly as good if they are at all mushy.  

On my foraging excursion today, there were heaps of mushrooms out. I spotted wood ear mushrooms, some jelly fungi, dozens of little brown mushrooms,  and some healthy turkey tails, Trametes versicolor. These rains have served the springtime mushrooms well. I also picked up these two small puffball mushrooms, Bovista, and spotted this friendly little turtle who hunkered down as I passed. I intend to fry up these little puffballs along with my morels. Should be a good dinner tonight!

My daughter holding one of the larger morels I found today. We'll be lucky if she leaves any for us tonight when we cook them, she loves her some gourmet mushrooms.

For more information about morels and mushroom identification, please visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella and I recommend picking up a mushroom identification book or two. Morels are very easy to ID, but there are certain features to be mindful of in terms of the potential for lookalikes. The hollow body is the prime feature to spot, if you cut one in half and it's not hollow, it's clearly not a morel and I wouldn't recommend eating it.

Always be sure you are 100% positive of the identification of mushrooms before consuming them. Regarding the puffballs pictured above, if you're not sure about a puffball, cut it in half, if you see gills, it's not a puffball, it's a young fungi that hasn't yet opened up. Do not eat it. Also, if the puffball mushroom has any discoloration inside, this is a sign that the fungi has begun to produce spores, which are toxic, do not eat it. If you're not sure, ask an expert or do more research.

Thanks for reading and happy foraging!

Peace!

Dead Nettle

I mentioned dead nettle in a previous blog post, so I thought it fitting to elaborate on this beautiful plant in its own post. Dead nettle, Lamium purpureum, grows commonly in yards and along roadsides, especially here in Georgia, oftentimes in thick swathes like a groundcover. This plant's flowers provide food for butterflies and bees and, like other plants in the Lamiaceae or mint family, which includes culinary herbs such as basil, mint, rosemary, sage, oregano, marjoram, thyme, and lavender provide edible and aromatic culinary use. 

 

The"dead-nettle" common name  refers to the resemblance and distant relation of Lamium album, stinging nettles, however unlike these, dead nettle does not exhibit stinging hairs and thus are harmless, or "dead". An interesting bit of info on this family of plants is that most of the plants in the family exhibit a square stem, this is apparent in both mints as well as stinging nettles, basil, dead nettle and henbit. While other plants might exhibit square stems as well, it is a hallmark of the mint, Lamiaceae, family.

Personally, I've enjoyed dead nettle and henbit simply as raw greens or as a cooked green, boiled, steamed, with some salt and pepper, tastes a bit like spinach, and can be easily added to any stir fry or pasta dish, or eggs, but I've recently been reading about using it to make pesto, much as you would with basil and I'm dying to try that out this spring. I can't stress enough the fact that what people view as "weeds" are really nothing more than misunderstood and underappreciated plants. Dead nettle is a prime example of this. Be warned, however, that if you intend to harvest dead nettle from the roadside, that you might be gathering a plant with a wide array of pollution on it, from the roadway, as well as city maintenance herbicide spray. Best to gather this from your own yard or from a trusted, herbicide-free location. Here's a suggestion, you might spot a giant patch of it growing in the soccer field behind your local church, consult with the pastor, ask if the field is herbicide and pesticide-free, if so, ask if it's ok if you harvest some of the wild dead netttle that flourishes there and enjoy! Hey, if you manage to harvest enough, share some dead nettle pesto with the pastor in a show of good will toward your fellow man.

Once again, this just goes to show that there is bounty all around us if we know where to look. Get out there, get down in the midtown mud and start seeking out these wonderful plants that until now you may have been overlooking! Happy foraging! Peace!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamiaceae

Introduction

Hey everyone! Starting a new blog for the purpose of sharing some of my experiences and posting reviews for products that I personally use. Focus will revolve around the camping world. I'll talk about hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, campfires, and may get into some stories of finding wild edible mushrooms, edible plants, gardening, tree identification and so on.

I am 30 years old, originally from a tiny rural Wisconsin town, now living in Midtown, Atlanta. I'm finding that there is an abundance of parks and random green spaces sprinkled in and around metro Atlanta; nestled between the highrise hustle, concrete bustle, there is so much natural beauty to explore!

As a youth, my dad would take us hunting, fishing, foraging in the woods of Wisconsin, my mom would put us to work gardening, growing vegetables. My childhood held a lot of outdoor fun and excitement and I hope to share some of my tales with you! Although my day job is in the telecommunications field, I truly enjoy spending time outdoors and I find nature very beautiful; there is peace in plant life, and learning about nature puts you closer to it and can sharpen the appreciation of all that the natural world has to offer.

I hope you find this information entertaining and/or useful! Thanks for reading!