Tag Archives: hedgehog fungus

The Big Fungi Haul

It’s ridiculous but it’s been such a busy summer that I hadn’t found time for foraging mushrooms in the forest this year until last Saturday 12th October. We took advantage of our helper Aleksandra Domańska from Sweden / Poland to harvest the ridiculous amounts of winter chanterelles / traktkantarell Craterellus tubaeformis in the forest at the moment. The first we picked were frozen but it became warmer as the day progressed. We returned to our car pool vehicle after several hours with 24kg of fungi, mostly winter chanterelles but also with a good number chantarelles / kantarell. two types of hedgehog fungi / piggsopp, one sheep polypore / sauesopp (Albatrellus ovinus), one cep / steinsopp and a few yellowfoot / gul trompetsopp (Craterellus lutescens). Some of the pictures in the forest were taken by Cathrine Kramer from The Center of Genomic Gastronomy who has been filming my autumn activities for a couple of days.



Forest bounty

Spending so much time in the 3 gardens I look after – The Edible Garden;  The World and Demonstration Gardens at Væres Venner Community Garden and the Allium Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim – I don’t get into the surrounding forest so often. Yesterday, we had a fantastic day foraging fungi in the forest nearby in Malvik and the forest shared with us and these will mostly be dried. The following edibles were picked:
Winter chanterelle / traktkantarell (grows in damp mossy locations in the forest)
Gul trompetsopp / yellow foot (on the edge of bogs)
Chantarelle / Kantarell  – a bit late for this, but we nevertheless found a few patches
Rødgul piggsopp / terracotta hedgehog
Piggsopp / hedgehog fungus  (Hydnum rufescens)

Sochan tops Mediterranean style

Thanks to Alan Bergo (@foragerchef) for reminding me to try sochan tops. This is Rudbeckia laciniata (cut-leafed coneflower) which in the double form is one of the most popular garden ornamentals here in Norway over the last 100 years and a plant that has been commercialised as a farm vegetable over recent years in Korea. I’d previously only eaten the spring shoots, but I was equally impressed by the tops which I used simply cooked with onion, garlic and  yellow zucchini from the garden, various fungi picked in the woods (saffron milkcap/matriske; hedgehog fungus / piggsopp and chantarelles / kantarell) and scrambled with eggs with a little chilim added (a classic way for preparing wild edibles in the Mediterranean countries. See the pictures below.
See other posts on this great vegetable which was introduced to me in one of Samuel Thayer’s books:
Appalachian Greens 
Cherokee Pizza 

Runner Bean harvest

As I wrote earlier, it looks like we may have a glut of runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) this year, the first time for many years. Runner beans are borderline here and last year we only managed to get a few beans before the first frosts. This year, we could have made a first harvest a week ago, but I wanted to keep the first beans for seed for the next couple of years. Yesterday we had bread dough ready and therefore made a pizza with runner beans and a mix of fungi picked in the woods (separate post). The dough was 100% coarse whole grain rye, spelt and emmer (sourdough)! Delicious as always!

Walk and forage to Tripynten

Friday’s  forage (11th October 2019) was combined with a walk to the top of Tripynten (315m).

Please let me know if you can ID any of the fungi!

Tonight’s slow quiche

100% coarse organic rye and emmer pie crust (flour and butter) kneeded into the pie dish (not rolled out), then a layer of blue cheese, then mixed vegetables and the rest of yesterday’s chantarelles, hedgehog fungi and Russula….and then filled with egg/milk/oregano mix and finished off with Mallow flowers which retain some of their colour at the end!
Greens: Allium fistulosum (spring onions), swiss chard, ground elder, nettle

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Fungi 26th August 2016

It was actually bilberries that were the evening’s objective, but when you see several ceps / steinsopp in the woods and hedgehogs/piggsopp and saffron milk caps / matriske (almost all surprisingly in good condition without fly larvae) and chantarelles / kantarell, then there’s a change of plan….and there was still time to pick more than enough bilberries for drying another ovenfull!

 

Barl-ryotto

Last night’s dinner: risotto made with rye and barley grain instead of rice with wild and cultivated vegetables and wild fungi:
Parsley, coriander, golpar (Heracleum maximum seed spice), 3 types of pea, baby carrots and broad beans, red mitsuba, 3 types of chicory, common sow thistle (Sonchus), saffron milk caps (matriske), hedgehog fungus (piggsopp), chanterelle (kantarell), Russula spp. , garlic, chili, nettle (variegated), swiss chard (mangold) and Allium nutans…
To sign up for dinner for two at my place, please sign up below ;)

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Cycle home forage!

Pictures from my cycle home from work with a large detour up into the woods to pick bilberries and fungi!
The video that comes first is the magical moment when I discover a large ring of hedgehog fungi in the forest :)