My mom used to make stuffed mushrooms fairly frequently when I was little and she entertained. Along with her spinach squares, Mom’s stuffed mushrooms were among my favorite appetizers.  So when it came time to find a recipe for stuffed morels, I proceeded directly to mom’s recipe for stuffed mushrooms.  (I also used her recipe for Chicken Français, or is it Française?) The stuffing consists of Italian bread crumbs, minced clams, garlic powder, butter, minced onion and possibly some other ingredients that aren’t coming to mind. I added some minced morels to the stuffing. 

The stuffed morels were seriously I’VE-DIED-AND-GONE-TO-HEAVEN-DELICIOUS. Holy cow. The earthy, meaty flavor of the morels, combined with the rich taste and smooth texture of the stuffing was almost more than my taste buds could handle–in a too-much-is-never-enough sort of way.

Eric and I found six more morels last night, and we filled four of the six mushrooms with leftover stuffing. The mushrooms shrink quite a bit when you cook them, so the bigger the morel, the better for stuffing.  Last night’s morels were fairly small, but they were good for bite-sized nibbles before dinner.  Eric tossed the two morels that were left into his scrambled eggs this morning.

I fear wild morel season in Vermont may be quickly coming to a close. I hope I have the energy to find some more before the season ends.

Eric sauteed a handful of them in butter and white wine to have with a Del Monico steak for dinner earlier this week. I made pasta with a sun-dried tomato cream sauce for myself the night he had the steak because I wasn’t in the mood for beef. I should have added some morels to the pasta sauce because it turned out to be surprisingly bland.  Eric kindly shared his sauteed mushrooms with me , which were unbelievably succulent. You can’t underestimate the power of a simple butter and white wine saute to enhance the natural flavor of morel mushrooms. Eating them was a religious experience.

The sauteed morels gave Eric the brilliant idea for a crepe with morels, and last night he made one bursting with mushrooms for me for dinner.  We debated whether or not to add cheese to the morel crepe. When I make crepes with sauteed button mushrooms and leeks, I always add goat cheese, but I decided I wanted a pure morel crepe. I didn’t want any other ingredients to hide the earthy, meaty flavor of the  morels. 

The crepe was wonderful.  Eric has become quite the master crepe  maker in the last few years. He loves making them. When we first met, I made them quite a bit, but since then he has happily supplanted me as the house crepe maker.

We hope to try making stuffed morels soon.

The place where we found morels last year hasn’t yielded anything so far. We went there at lunch today and got skunked again.  That’s three times this week. 

We’re going to make a morel pizza for dinner tonight. I’m dying to make some stuffed morels, as well as a wild morel stroganoff.

Eric and I are thinking of making a wild morel pizza with the mushrooms I found today.  YUM!

Friday I scoped out another area, only to get skunked again. On Sunday, Eric and I went back to the location I scouted Friday, and we hit the jackpot: We picked 19 morels—a combination of black morels and blond morels. Eric spotted them first, then I started eyeing them. 

I discovered this productive spot while hiking with Toby last fall. Of course, there weren’t any morels then, but there were a lot of ash trees, which, I’m told, is a good sign if you want to find morels in the spring.

While we were foraging for morels, we also picked a bunch of wild leeks. With our bounty, I made a tasty wild morel and wild leek quiche for dinner last night. The April 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living included a recipe for a scallion and wild morel quiche, but I found it a tad too complicated for dinner on a Monday night. So I adapted Martha’s recipe and another quiche recipe to make my special wild leek and morel quiche. Recipe after the jump.

Wild Leek and Morel Quiche

Ingredients:

Pre-made pie crust (I used Pillsbury’s “Just Unroll” pie crust)

2 Tbsp. butter

3 to 4 oz. wild morels, stems removed, halved or quartered

1/4 C chopped wild leeks

3/4 C shredded cheddar cheese

3/4 C heavy cream

1/4 C whole milk

3 eggs

Method:

Preheat oven to 350. Place pie crust in pie- or tart pan, prick with a fork, line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights. Bake 20 minutes. Remove parchment paper and pie weights from pie crust and bake another 6 minutes.

While pie crust is baking, sauté morels and leeks in butter until they’re soft.  In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs, heavy cream and whole milk until just combined.

When pie crust is ready, sprinkle cheddar cheese over it, then sprinkle on the morel and leek mixture. Finally, pour in egg-cream-milk mixture and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, until the quiche is set and browned to your liking.

Last week I received an e-mail from Clear Brook Farm announcing its first-ever summer CSA program. Unlike traditional CSAs where participants are handed a box of pre-selected produce each week, Clear Brook Farm’s new summer share program will allow customers to select exactly what they want, when they want it. It is the most flexible, convenient, economical and customer- and community-focused CSA that I’ve ever heard of.

Here’s how it works: When you sign up for the CSA, Clear Brook Farm sets up a gift card for you in the amount of the share you’ve selected (i.e., $250 for a small share or $450 for a large share).  You then use that gift card ANYTIME you want to shop at Clear Brook Farm, and you can apply it toward the purchase of ANYTHING that Clear Brook Farm sells–potted plants, local meats and cheeses, ice cream, pastries, produce, you name it.

To encourage customers to purchase summer shares, Clear Brook Farm is offering a credit: Depending on the size of the share you choose and when you sign up for it, you can get an extra $10 to $30 added to your gift card.  It’s their own little economic stimulus plan, and it’s really innovative.

The revenue Clear Brook Farm generates through the CSA helps the farm cover its start-up costs for the season. It also enables Clear Brook Farm to give low-income families in the community access to fresh, local organic food.  From Clear Brook’s e-mail: 

With every 15 full shares purchased we will donate a $225 share to a low income, local family. Through the Northeast Organic Farmers Association’s program, we will identify and  provide a share to a low income family in our community that can be used to purchase produce or vegetable starts from our farm.

Although I’d like to purchase a large share, I unfortunately can only afford to plunk down $250 for the small share. Large shares cost $450, and even $250 remains a sizable sum to front all at once. (That’s why I so appreciated the payment plans Clear Brook offered to customers for its 2009 winter CSA.)

Still, the 250 clams are for an excellent cause, and I look forward to using that gift card once Clear Brook Farm’s produce stand opens mid-June. I usually spend about $30 per week at Clear Brook during the summer, so the $250 share will last me about eight weeks.  

Now if only Clear Brook Farm could do something about this weather…

This udon noodle soup delivered the same big flavor as the sausage and tortellini soup, but without all the fat. In fact, there’s no fat at all in the udon noodle soup.

I made some major modifications to America’s Test Kitchen’s udon noodle soup recipe. First, to cut down on the cost of the ingredients, I used the tofu that was in my fridge instead of buying scallops at the supermarket. Second, I used spinach instead of watercress because I couldn’t find the spicy green at my supermarket, and since I had spinach from my CSA in my fridge. Third, I used the ramen noodles in my pantry in lieu of udon noodles, which I couldn’t find at Price Chopper, anyway. Finally, I used the dried porcini mushrooms in my pantry in place of dried shiitake mushrooms–another ingredient I couldn’t find at my local Price Chopper.

I enjoyed this soup so much because it was so tasty, satisfying and healthy. Eric and I got several meals out of it.

Ingredients

4 C. low sodium chicken broth

4 C. water

1/3 C. soy sauce

1/4 C. mirin

6 dried shiitake mushrooms (I used porcinis)

1 (3/4-in.) piece of fresh ginger, peeled, sliced and crushed

1 (9-oz.) package of fresh udon noodles (I used ramen; soba would work equally well and would provide more protein)

1 lb. sea scallops (I used tofu)

2 C. watercress (I used four cups of spinach)

3 scallions, sliced thin

Method

1. Combine broth, water, soy sauce, mirin, ginger and shiitakes in a large saucepan. [If you're using porcinis instead of shiitakes, reconstitute your porcinis in boiling water before adding them to the broth.] Simmer, covered, over medium heat about 10 minutes. [If using porcinis, add them after 10 minutes.]

2. Meanwhile, bring 2 quarts water to boil in a large pot. Add noodles to boiling water and cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Drain noodles, then divide between 4 large serving bowls.

3. Using slotted spoon, remove ginger and shiitakes from simmering broth [<--I left the ginger and porcinis in the broth]. Discard ginger and shiitake stems.  Slice shiitake caps thin and return to pot. Add scallops [or tofu] to pot and simmer until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Stir in watercress [or spinach] and scallions until just wilted, about 1 minute. Ladle soup over noodles and serve.

This is another great recipe from my America’s Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers recipe booklet. I like it because it tastes awesome, you can prepare it quickly, and because I always have all the ingredients in my pantry.

Ingredients

3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

4 anchovy fillets, minced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

2 (14.5-oz.) cans petite diced tomatoes (I used 1, 28-oz. can)

2 (6 oz.) cans tuna packed in water, drained and flaked

1/2 C pitted kalamata olives, chopped

2 Tbsp drained capers

3 Tbsp choped fresh parsley

1 lb. spaghetti

Method

1. Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in a large pot. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add anchovies, garlic and pepper flakes and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

2. Add tomatoes and cook until slightly thickened, about 8 minutes. Add tuna, olives and capers, and cook, breaking up any large tuna chunks, until heated through, about two minutes. Off heat, stin in parsley. Cover and keep warm.

3. Add spaghetti and 1 Tbsp. salt to boiling water and cook until al dente. Reserve 1/2 C. cooking water, drain pasta and return to pot. Add sauce and toss to combine, adding reserved pasta water as needed (I didn’t use any). Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Modifications

1. The recipe calls for 1 lb. of pasta to serve four people.  Since I was just cooking for Eric and I me, I only used a half pound of pasta, but I still cooked all of the sauce.  A half pound of pasta yielded two healthy servings for Eric and me as well as leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

2. I used Barilla’s whole grain spaghetti.

Other notes

1. The garlic came from my CSA.

2. I made a salad to go with the pasta. The leaf lettuce came from the last week of my CSA–the week before Christmas. I finally used up all the lettuce tonight.

I’ve been meaning to address for several weeks the fact that my blog features so very few pictures of the delectable dinners I prepare. Allow me to explain the glaring absence of images on this food blog.

Last April, when my husband and I were vacationing on Grand Bahama, my dear husband lost a key piece of the gadget we use to charge our digital camera battery.  Without this component of the battery charger, we can not plug the battery charger into an outlet. Thus, our digital camera battery remains dead. Thus, I can not take photos, and I am currently too cheap to purchase a new battery or battery charging system. The last time I checked the price of a battery charging kit for a Kodak digital camera on Amazon.com, it cost $60. For that much money (plus another 30 bucks), I could purchase one of those new Canon Sure Shots that rate so highly in Consumer Reports.    

As I look at the price of battery charging kits on Kodak’s website this evening, I see they’re now on sale, and the one I think I need is $40–a more reasonable price. 

In the meantime, I’ll continue to use 35 mm film.  (Remember that stuff?)

I wasn’t expecting the soup to have much flavor, but after I tasted it my eyes grew wide. This soup is bursting with a rich, meaty flavor from the Italian sausage and the cheese tortellini.  The soup looks and tastes as if it was made with rendered bacon fat and a Parmesan cheese rind. It also tastes as though it had simmered for hours. In fact, I don’t think it took much more than 30 minutes to cook. I highly recommend this recipe.

Sausage and Tortellini Soup with Spinach

Ingredients

1 Tbsp olive oil (I omitted the olive oil; the soup gets enough fat from the sausage)

1 lb. sweet or hot Italian sausage

1 onion, chopped fine

2 cloves of garlic, minced

6 cubs low-sodium chicken broth

1 bay leaf

1 (9 oz.) package fresh cheese tortellini

3 C baby spinach

salt & pepper

Method

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking (I omitted this step). Cook sausages, rolling occasionally, until browned all over, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and pour off all but 1 Tbsp fat from pot. (I didn’t bother to pour off the extra fat.)

2. Cook onion in sausage fat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth and bay leaf, scraping up any browned bits, and bring to a boil.

3. Cut browned sausages into 1/2-inch rounds and add to pot. Stir in tortellini and simmer over medium heat until tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in spinach until just wilted, about a minute. Season with salt and pepper. Discard bay leaf. Serve.