Forest and Farm

  So, I am obsessed with radishes.  I know, that's weird.  I love them for a number of reasons.  The first is how quickly they grow.  Radishes are always the first thing that is ready in my garden.  They pop out of the soil, just asking to be picked.    I've always thought of radishes as an unappetizing addition to salads.  I had only ever had them raw, until I grew my own.  Although I do like them raw now, I disliked their spicy flavor, and could think of no other way to eat them.  My favorite way to use radishes now is sauteed.  I slice them and saute them with olive oil and a bit of salt.  After they cool, I add them to salads, use them to top pizza, or toss them in pasta.  After they are sauteed, radishes loose their bite, and are almost sweet!  My children love them this way.  In fact, my daughter, Tessie, was so used to cooked radishes, that she once picked up a big radish at a party ...

This has been a rather disappointing spring, as far as foraging is concerned.  For the past several years, my husband and myself have been honing in on the exact environment the magical morel mushroom grows in.  This unique mushroom is truly a treasure.  Prolific in more eastern parts of the country as a yellow morel, the rocky mountain version is dark and mysterious. It grows around 8,000 -10,000 feet elevation on steep slopes covered in scrub oak.  We will often find them in clusters, just pushed up from the earth.  Morels will pop up all through the month of May here, right around my birthday, and I look forward to it every year.  A gorgeous Morel from last May After a long mushroom deprived winter, it is a joy to get back into the woods, foraging for these delicious beauties.  This year we grew increasingly more worried as May approached.  Our winter was almost non-existent as far as moisture is concerned, and we crossed our fingers for ...