More Wild Mushrooms, Agaricus campestris

I found more today.  This time I'm adding some onion and thyme.

I start these by peeling off the caps and slicing them.  I add a little butter and olive oil to a pan and saute some chopped onion.  When it's translucent, I add the mushrooms along with some fresh thyme leaves.

When the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms are cooked, I finish them off with just about a tablespoon of cream to give a silky texture.  These mushrooms are not as firm as those from the store--they have thinner caps--but they have such a delicious woodsy mushroom flavor!  The first few times I had cultivated mushrooms I thought they were rubbery compared to these.

My absolute favorite way to eat these is just over boiled, fork-mashed, salted potatoes. And, today, I treated myself to some marinated herring in sour cream on the side.  (My husband said I just lost him there--he wants no part of the herring.)  My drink of choice for this meal is cold fresh buttermilk.

Field Mushrooms, Pieczarki

We've had several days of heavy rain and cool temperatures.  Today was a beautiful day with the definite feel of very early fall.  I walked behind the house to feel the fresh air and spotted a couple field mushrooms.  We usually find a couple in early fall but this time I kept finding more and more.  I didn't even have my apron on to gather them up in so I balanced as many as I could on one hand but had to give up and go for the basket--and a knife.

We always gathered these mushrooms when I was young and always heard the stories of the beautiful mushrooms that Mama and her sisters gathered in the woods in Poland.  They were of all colors and would look so pretty in a pan together she would tell me.  She didn't know the wild mushrooms here so these were the only ones we gathered.  The Polish name for these is pieczarki.  We had a black iron wood stove in our kitchen at that time and we liked to lay a couple mushrooms right on the stove itself and let them sizzle with a little salt sprinkled on top and ate them right off the stove.  Mostly, Mama fried them gently in butter and added a little flour, cooked a little more, and then poured in some light cream to make the best mushroom sauce.  The only seasonings she used were salt and pepper. 

Since they have soil and grass over their caps, we just peeled the thin skin off each one. 

I sliced them and prepared them just like my mother did.  These mushrooms are more delicate than the cultivated ones in the grocery store and have a little deeper flavor.  If they were from the store I might add onion or thyme, but I want these plain with just a little thickened cream and salt and pepper and I'm having them over plain bread, toasted.

  The only thing I wanted with this fall lunch was an icy cold glass of fresh, sweet apple cider from the farmer's market.  

Note:  There are white wild mushrooms that are quite poisonous--don't even taste a mushroom that you don't know for absolutely certain is edible. 

BBA Challenge - Pain de Campagne

This BBA Challenge bread is good for making into different shapes and the book shows a variety of possibilities.  I have one banneton (another one has been ordered!) which is a round coiled basket used to proof a loaf into a nice round shape.  I wanted to try it out so I used it for one loaf.  I used a mixing bowl lined with a floured towel for a second round loaf and I decided to turn the third loaf into an "epi" shape.  The epi is first made into a long loaf.  Then you make cuts into it and twist portions of dough out toward one side and then the other to form a long bread with rolls coming out all along it.  I didn't get a picture of it because it was eaten up too fast.  It was too busy a weekend for good pictures, but I did manage to snap a quick picture of the two round loaves.  The one with the rings was proofed in a banneton:

I floured the banneton and the toweled bowl rather heavily as you can see here for fear of sticking.  I had no problem with that.  What did give me trouble was trying to score the dough before baking to make those nice marks on the top.  I have a special little scoring blade but as soon as I started trying to make the cuts the dough began collapsing.  You can see the loaves are a little misshapen.  I also didn't get a brown color--especially on the loaf in the back, but it was definitely done and delicious. The loaves were rather small and look just perfect for soups "in a bread bowl."  As soon as I get my second banneton, I'd like to make this bread again and get the hang of that scoring.  Then I'll make my soup or chili to serve in it.

Plum Pierogi

Italian prune plums always remind me of my mother's plum pierogi.  I loved them and am craving that taste again.

I made the pierogi dough the same as in the earlier post.  I only made a half recipe since I didn't plan to make too many pierogi.  I cut the circles out with a cutter that was a little over 3" across.  I washed 16 plums, cut them open on one side only, removed the pit and replaced it with a sugar cube.  I then wrapped a round of dough around each plum and sealed it according to the directions in my pierogi post.  If you find the dough is a little dry and wants to tear, wet your fingers with water and smooth the whole surface of the round with the water while stretching it gently before putting the plum into it.  Also, wet the inside edge before you seal it to make a tighter seal.   Follow directions to cook the pierogi, about half of them at a time.  At home, we just ate them as they came out of the water, but I thought my husband might prefer some sort of topping.  The usual topping would be bread crumbs browned in butter with some cinnamon and sugar added.  I decided to try these with plum sauce instead since I had so many plums.

Plum Sauce

1-1/2 lbs. prune plums, pitted and chopped

1/4 cup sugar

A little water--2 or 3 tablespoons

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon butter

Simmer the first 4 ingredients until the plums become soft and the water cooks out a little.  Add the butter and simmer a couple more minutes to make a thickened sauce.

Serve the pierogi with the plum sauce.  Sprinkle with a little more cinnamon.

 

I like these warmed up a day later with some sauce--the flavors are better blended by then.   This is one of my nostalgia--from home--treats that I really make just for myself. 

BBA Challenge - Pain a l'Ancienne

We took a summer break from bread baking but fall's coming and we're starting back into our BBA Challenge.  Our next bread to make was Pain a l'Ancienne.  This bread is shown as baguettes, but we decided to shape it into focaccia.  Except for a small mistake I made of reaching for the spray water instead of spray oil to spray the parchment paper with before easing the soft, sticky dough onto it (which meant I had the mess of spraying a new sheet with oil and removing wet sticky dough from the first paper and transferring it!)--other than that--I had absolutely no trouble with this bread.

Focaccia can be topped with oil and any combination of herbs, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, etc., before baking.  I chose to simply drizzle it lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. I didn't add any herbs since I wanted the option to add whatever flavor I want when I eat it.  I love it simply dipped in olive oil with salt or in rosemary oil.  Another time I might want to add basil or other herbs to the oil.  I also loved it with my homemade butter spread on it. (See previous post.)  This would make a great panini or a simple sandwich.  My problem is I want to eat the whole loaf right now--I'm well on my way.  I had to hide half of it in the freezer to keep it away from me. 

Making Cultured Butter

It had been many years since I made butter.  When I was little we had a cow and making butter was just a chore.  We had a glass churn with a dasher that we used.  When the glass broke, we just put cream in a quart jar and took turns shaking it until it became butter.  When I came across this challenge at the site of forging fromage I started looking for cream that was not ultra pasteurized.  I found some at my farmer's market. (Although girlichef informed me she was able to make it from ultrapasteurized cream.)

The instructions say to add some plain whole-milk yogurt to heavy cream and allow it to sit a day.  

The second day you just use a mixer, whip and "presto" butter forms! The butter has now separated from the "buttermilk."  The buttermilk is poured off.  The butter is rinsed several times in ice water.  With each rinse you work the butter with your hands or a paddle under the ice water to try to get out all the buttermilk.  

Then you can add salt and any herbs or flavorings you want.

The only thing I added to my butter was salt, and I poured the buttermilk into the jar the cream came in.

I'll use the buttermilk for pancakes or some other recipe and we're totally enjoying the butter already.  I just added salt to it.  This was fun to do, although a bit expensive for two pints of the wonderful cream.   

See the site for more details if you want to try this yourself.         

Plum Cake with cardamom

This cake is good made with plums that have some sweetness to them--no ice cream needed:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 egg yolks (or 2 large eggs)

6 plums

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Line a 9-1/2" springform pan with wax paper.  Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. 

Mix flour with baking powder, salt and cardamom.  Set aside.

Whip softened butter and 1 cup sugar in mixer until light and fluffy.  Mix in the vanilla.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one.  Add the dry ingredients and mix.

Spread batter into pan.  Slice the plums into eight pieces and layer into the cake batter.  Mix the tablespoon sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle over plums.

Bake about one hour until cake is golden and cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.