Wild Mushrooms and Rhubarb

WILD MUSHROOMS
DH loves to wander the woods when the temps begin to raise and the days get a little steamy. He has his secret spots, but I cannot tell because mushroom hunters do not tell where their treasures are found. However, this mushroom hunter's wife will tell you what she did with the "loot". This picture is of a wonderful tasty and creamy wild mushroom barley risotto an idea I got from the Lorna Sass cookbook titled, "whole grains: everyday every way". I am saving my version of this recipe in my seasonal family favorite recipe folder.

VWAV: Isa also has a great recipe for Mushroom Gravy that I made, however it was the first time I ever used arrowroot powder and discovered it is not as stable as cornstarch. However the flavor and the meal I made with it, no disappointment here. This is a picture of a wild/brown rice combination topped with the mushroom gravy with a side of homegrown asparagus, and breaded mushroom. Bryanna Grogan has a wonderful seasoned breading mix in her Almost No Fat Cookbook.
As asparagus is beginning to come up in my garden, the pot stickers were the perfect recipe to use up the three stalks I harvested from my garden that day. I found a mushroom asparagus pot sticker recipe in a Light and Tasty Cooking magazine which allowed me to use up some the large mushroom harvest DH brought home the same day. Honestly, it was alot of work making the potstickers, but I made enough to freeze so I could have some on hand for a fast meal. It was worth the effort because I have discovered my family likes anything placed in a crispy little pocket that they can dip into a soy sauce type mixture. I love anything that the family will eat and allow me to use up the fresh produce that grows in our garden while it is still fresh. I froze the pot stickers uncooked on a sheet and them put them in a freezer bag ready to take out and bake at 425 F for 10 - 12 minutes.
To the right is a picture of our meal: broccoli mushroom stir fry, brown and wild rice mix, steamed green beans, and the pot stickers drizzled with a tasty sauce. The schezuan broccoli stir fry came from Bryanna Grogan's: 20 Minutes to Dinner Cook book. I subbed the soy strips called for in the original recipe for DH's fresh wild mushrooms ... the stir fry was much prettier than my meal plate shows so I'll put a close up of the stir fry to the left. It tasted wonderful; schezuan is my favorite!


To finish off the FRESH food meals I have been preparing I made muffins, another Bryanna recipe called
Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rhubarb Muffins.
I make most everything with stevia, so I will give you my version of these muffins.

Wet Mix:
1/2 C smooth applesauce
1 1/2 C soymilk
3 Tbsp light tasting olive oil
1 T lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer
1 1/2 tsp KAL brand stevia

Dry Mix:
2 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Additional:
1 1/2 cup diced rhubarb, can be frozen (mine wasn't)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare muffin cups by greasing or spraying with pan spray (I use special unbleached parchment papers because I like low fat baking and do not want the muffins to stick to the paper and rip apart). Combine the wet mix in the blender or food processor. In a medium bowl combine the dry mix. Add the wet to the dry and stir briefly just to mix. Spoon evenly into the prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. C Cool the pans on racks for 5 minutes, then carefully loosen the muffins with a table knife and turn them on their sides to cool a bit more before serving. These vegan muffins are quite tender when they are very hot, but they firm up with cooling.

Bryanna makes 18 muffins with this recipe, I made 11. I made a decorated tiramisu type muffin using Dreena's agar frosting, fresh strawberries, and a heart shaped candy. They were a pretty presentation to the end of our meal and for breakfast the next morning.Satisfied? I think so.

Cooking away the cold ...

(updated)

LINK TO COOK BEHIND THE APRON
I have noticed other blogs I enjoy reading have been posting their 28 cooks "coming out". I did mine a few days ago, but wanted to add a link to it again.

Now back to food (my favorite subject)...
It is really cold here ..... like below zero cold and I'm not talking wind chill. BRRR! I live in an "extreme" (winter and summer temperature differences) weather area. As I was contemplating the ability to complain I decided to look through past blog entries to find warming thoughts, here is a link to a post I made in July when the thermometer was reading over 100 (and no not dry heat). I won't complain anymore. Instead I will begin to think different warm thoughts ... like crock pots and soup. The crock pot is god send, I love warm comforting food when I get home. Yesterday I made a recipe from Bryanna's Oct-Dec 2006 newsletter called LOCRO (a squash and vegetable stew). She didn't make it in the crock pot, but I did. I had it on low all day (about 8 hours) and it worked well. I used 2 3/4 cups mixed vegetables instead of the recommended corn and peas. I also made seasoned brown rice in the rice maker and refrigerated it for quick micro heating when I was ready to serve. Although the recipe looked simple and didn't stand out as exciting, it was excellent.... even DD said this is pretty good. It is pretty colorful too. I have a basket of four more butternut squash I want to use up so I'll be trying more recipes with them soon.

ON TO LUNCHES (Can you tell I'm having fun with these?)
This is a whole grain English muffin sandwich with one of Bryanna's crock pot steak patties / roasted red pepper and onion, a romaine salad with sprouts/ red pepper/ purple onion/ currants, homemade apple pie filling sprinkled with homemade granola, and "sushi" pickles that I made using a recipe from the book Summer in a Jar by Andrea Chesman. The pickles are made with large thin slices of ginger root and carrots and tastes just like the little pink pickled ginger slices on a sushi bar (yum).

The steak again only cut up with some seasoned brown rice, romaine salad with sweet corn relish (Andrea Chesman's book again, homemade using my home grown garden gooodies too), home canned pear slices that I didn't grow (no pear trees here) but bought in abundance from an organic Amish farmer, and strips of roasted peppers and onions to add to my rice and steak. The little red container has balsamic dressing for my salad.

Today's lunch. If you turn your head like you would to read a smiley you will notice that this lunch has a container of Stacey's pita chips, roasted red pepper dip from Marie Oser's Soy of Cooking, romaine salad with carrots and sprouts, a sorta trail mix container including roasted peanuts/sunspire m&m's/ currants, along with a banana which I intend to use as a "poker" to pick up the "trail" mix.
NOTE: The red pepper dip called for 2 cloves of garlic. I used two fresh cloves and let my magic bullet mixer whip it with the roasted red pepper, seasonings and tofu smooth. The garlic has come back to haunt. I really like to taste of this so the next time I make it I will roast the garlic with the red pepper.

Thanks to the Oser cookbook and then confirmed by Megan the Vegan I have been hankering mushrooms. My new Oser cookbook calls for ground chicken style gimme lean, which I have never bought before and I didn't want to make any from scratch so, I then decided to have something different for supper and prepared the mushrooms to use another time. I then remembered the mushrooms I made some time ago using brussell sprouts so I looked it up and decided these are what I would try again . . . . here's the link to my previous entry about them and ia link to the recipe included.

Since I bought a 24 ounce package of the nice stuffer size mushrooms I had plenty of stems and 1/3 of the package which I could make into another dish. A dish like Oser's creamy mushrooms sauce over pasta. I actually left the recipe out and asked DH to make it so supper would be ready when I got home tonight. We'll see how it turns out, DH is a sweetheart and said he would however I will c hop the carrots and onions this morning as a time saver for him this evening. I'm looking forward to it, will share pictures later.

No pictures of the pasta because DD chopped the carrots into a salad with romaine and used up the sliced mushrooms I had planned for the sauce also before DH could get on the pasta. Last night we had pita pizza and salad NOT the pasta. I also still have the mushroom caps for stuffed mushrooms, but intend to use them soon.