Hudson Valley Gatherers

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From foraging to mushroom hunting, this a place to learn and talk about what you can find to eat in the woods.

Members: 93
Latest Activity: Dec 21, 2012

Featured Foraged Recipe

Hen and Chicken Alfredo

These days, I generally prefer dark poultry meat, but in this dish I use white because I was focused on having the mushroom flavor come through but making it hearty enough for my boyfriend. This would a great vegetarian dish as well, if you want to omit the chicken.

When you add the pasta, focus on a good balance of sauce to noodles, adding it in incrementally until you have the right sauce level. Slightly under-cooking the noodles, and then finishing them in the sauce, allows the noodle to absorb the flavor (a trick of Italian cooks).

1-2 bone in chicken breasts with skin
1 lb linguine or fettuccini, preferably fresh (cooked al dente)
Loosely packed 2 cups of chopped Hen of the Woods
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 to 2 cups spinach
¾ c. heavy cream
¼ to ½ c. vegetable or chicken broth
Red pepper flakes

Lightly season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and brush with olive oil. Sear the chicken in a large sauté pan until skin is browned. Remove breasts from pan and place on baking sheet. Bake in a 375 degree oven until cooked through.

Add onion and garlic to sauté pan, scraping up brown bits from chicken (aka pure deliciousness). Saute about five minutes until onions soften. Add mushrooms. Saute about 10 minutes until the mushrooms release their juices and soften.

Add heavy cream, broth and red pepper flakes. Let simmer until sauce thickens, about 10 more minutes.

Remove chicken skin and dice the meat. Add any drippings from the baking sheet to the sauce. Add chicken, pasta and spinach to the sauce. Stir until spinach is wilted and sauce clings to pasta.

Serve topped with grated parmesan cheese.

Discussions on HVFN:

Restaurants and markets that buy/sell foraged foods
Your best wild mushroom and foraged recipes

Reading:

Seize the day lily: A taste in New York City parks
A foraged feast from Yonkers
A Harriman blogger: book recommendations and recipes.

Hudson Valley Hosts September Mushroom Foray

Next September, the Hudson Valley will host a weekend of mushroom walks, talks - a total geek out on all things mushroom.

The Northeast Mycological Federation chose Kerhonkson as the site for the 2010 Sam Ristich Foray. For average folk, this is a chance to peek into the minds of the area's greatest mycologists and collectors.

Get on the mailing list to get foray updates by emailing nemf2010@verizon.net.

Books

Discussion Forum

Foraging 2011 Results

Started by Heather Awen Aug 30, 2011. 0 Replies 0 Likes

My first year as a forager has been something of a roller coaster ride. From my excitement to finding baby board leaf dock to use in lasagna and it making us sick to making wild river grape juice…Continue

Graveyard Mulberries & Bear Scat

Started by Heather Awen. Last reply by Erin Elizabeth Jul 7, 2011. 1 Reply 0 Likes

I was gathering mulberries…Continue

Tags: mulberries, bears

pears anyone?

Started by Heather Awen. Last reply by Heather Awen Jul 3, 2011. 2 Replies 0 Likes

in the yard of my new home is an old pear tree. last year it grew lots of weird, lumpy, rotting, bug infested pears and this year it is filled with strong baby pears. i don't like pears generally,…Continue

Asking strangers if I can pick their apples

Started by Heather Awen Jul 2, 2011. 0 Replies 0 Likes

when i lived in los angeles, a man used to drop by to ask if he could pick our yard's persimmon tree. being north east coast gringos we happily said yes, since we had no clue what to do with them.due…Continue

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Cornell Mushroom Blog

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Comment by Elmer LeSuer on April 1, 2010 at 9:23am: I heard about this on a news talk radio program... Looking for feedback and opinions... Have any of you heard about this yet?

www.survivalseedbank.com

It says they'll last 20 years... Does that sound true?

Do any of you have seed banks?

Are any of you so concerned about GMO that you are starting seed collections or is this all hype to create a market?

Comment by Elmer LeSuer on April 1, 2010 at 9:22am: Tony, I could be convinced to bring you to a spot or two but you'll have to wear a blindfold until we get there!!!

Just joking... of course you are welcome to come along...

Glad you found your way in here... Meghan is doing a great job with HVFN and this grouping of blogs is a great resource.

Make sure to get your SFM dates on the calendar... This is THE calendar for food related events in the HV...

Comment by Meghan E. Murphy on March 30, 2010 at 9:01am: Tony, Come to our first morel walk! you'll meet plenty of people who will share their mushroom secrets.

Comment by Tony Hitchcock on March 29, 2010 at 2:38pm: Great to see Elmer as a member. Perhaps I can pry out of him a Morel location or two. I have failed miserably trying to get the guys at Love Bites to tell me more than "Eastern U.S." regarding the source of their HUGE annual morel harvest! I had a wonderful site in a scrub oak grove in the middle of a farm field in the Hamptons...for years until they turned it into a McMansion development.

Comment by LaurenPapot on March 27, 2010 at 8:28pm: Article on foraging for Day Lily shoots from the NY Times. I haven't tried the green shoots (or the tubers - I understand you can prepare them much like potatoes), but I love adding the blossoms to a salad.

Comment by D. C. Rowland on March 19, 2010 at 10:10am: Here is some foodful thought, as you watch your crocuses inch up and bloom over the next few days, think of this ...

... In 1932 -1933 there was a massive famine throughout the USSR. In the Ukraine, my family survived the spring of '33 on nothing more than dandelion leaves and crocus bulbs.

Comment by Meghan E. Murphy on February 24, 2010 at 4:46pm: Thanks Gary. Just to clarify, I meant that someone could start a separate group within the Hudson Valley Food Network for hunting and fishing.

I feel people who sign up for the gatherers are interested in mushrooms and ramps and the like...

Raccoon is not so bad. I had it at Sal's Wild Game Dinner in 2008. Very salty.

Comment by Gary Allen on February 24, 2010 at 11:32am: The hunting (and fishing, BTW) issue is more complicated than it seems at first glance. First, a disclaimer: I used to hunt, but haven't done so in over twenty years.

I did, however, think a lot about the pros and cons back then.

Certainly, we all love to see wild animals in nature (or what passes for nature these days). I understand how people feel about that. But, if we are going to eat meat, we should compare the ethics and health consequences of wild vs. "domestic" meat.

Wild animals lead free lives up to the moment of their death. Domestic animals do not.

Wild animals are not fed any number of things that are, ultimately, bad for their health and ours.

Wild animals are often lower in fat than domestic animals (unless one eats raccoon or woodchuck -- something I would not recommend).

Some wild animals, like their domestic equivalents, live in conditions of over-population. This leads to health problems for both, and the health of wild populations can be improved by carefully-monitored reduction of herd size.

Consider the environmental impact of factory farms and long-distance shipping vs. harvesting of local wild animals.

Wild animals are part of the ecological systems in which they live; domestic animals are not (they might have been, once, in the distant past, but they have been moved from their original ecological niche, bred to the point where they are totally dependent on us, and concentrated in such large numbers that no natural environment could support them).

Is there not an ethical difference between being intimately-involved in the death of an animal we want to eat and buying a shrink-wrapped piece of unidentifiable animal in the refrigerated section of a store? Doesn't hunting (or raising our own food animals) acknowledge the seriousness of our actions? Eating meat, should we choose to do so, is not something to take lightly -- and hunting is one way of accepting responsibility for our culinary choices.

Finally, not to trivialize the issue, why do we forage at all? We like to be out in nature. We like to be involved in acquiring our own food. We like the variety of flavors not to be found in supermarkets. We like not having to pay for something that is intrinsically better than that which is available in stores. These all sound like hunting to me.

Comment by Meghan E. Murphy on February 24, 2010 at 9:55am: If you're talking hunting mushrooms, then yes! If there's interest in local animal hunting, I would suggest starting a separate group for that.

Comment by D. C. Rowland on February 24, 2010 at 12:18am: Are we gonna count hunting as part of this group's prerogative?