What's for Dinner?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sad_winslow

Took some classes on it not too long ago, even. I'm nowhere near competent enough to start finding things on the ground and eating them, though.

What part of the world are you in? There are typically a couple "no brainers" in every climate/area that are easy to go with. Take a walk and post some pics. For edibles, I only eat maybe 5-6 different kinds. I have some which are only good to dry and then use in soups or as a spice of sorts.

I can, however, talk about how some of the poisonous ones do their dirty work.

Fascinating, isn't it? The amanita's are one of my favorite killers. If you are into reading about them, the Audubon book is a fantastic one with which you can start.

[sad_winslow]

Originally Posted by classicman

What part of the world are you in? There are typically a couple "no brainers" in every climate/area that are easy to go with. Take a walk and post some pics. For edibles, I only eat maybe 5-6 different kinds. I have some which are only good to dry and then use in soups or as a spice of sorts.

Fascinating, isn't it? The amanita's are one of my favorite killers. If you are into reading about them, the Audubon book is a fantastic one with which you can start.

Oh, there's mushrooms to be had around here, for sure. I'm in California, not too far from Sacramento. All sorts of goodies can be found if you know where to look, particularly if you scoot in closer to the coast and start heading north. Chanterelles, king boletes, morels, even matsutakes all stretch from here up through Oregon. December-ish is supposed to be a really good time to go looking, though you have to watch out for competition with their iphones and tight pants and bad facial hair.

We actually had a mushroom poisoning a couple years ago in Sacramento that was a pretty big deal, when a caregiver for some elderly cooked up a meal that killed a couple old folks and made a few more people (including themselves, iirc) deathly ill. Some of the local deadlies are apparently pretty similar to perfectly edible varieties in Eastern Europe. Oops.

Amanitin toxicity is pretty interesting, but I'm more amused by Gyromitra (one of the false morels) poisoning. Gyromitrin quite readily breaks down into a chemical called monomethylhydrazine, a substance that makes a very good propellant for spacecraft (usually for manuvering thrusters) but does not make a very good propellant for human metabolisms. IIRC not only is it pretty highly toxic, but if you do survive it's still a carcinogen, so good luck with that.

[classicman]

Awesome. One item on my bucket list is to go west on a massive morel hunt. Probably in Oregon. Sadly the east coast morels are tiny, at best, compared to their west coast counterparts.

[classicman]

OK, I know I'm limited in my cooking, but I like what I cook and I cook what I like. Its also the season for me so I'm flush with shrooms and looking for new ways to eat them.
Tonight's entrant is cheese raviolis atop a bed of sauteed baby spinach & Hen of the Woods with rough minced garlic and onion drizzled in an Olive oil and butter sauce.

[limey]

Droolz!

[DanaC]

God that looks delish!

[bbro]

Home made turkey soup......that seems to turn into a gelatin when cooled

[glatt]

that's the best kind!

[classicman]

I love that bbro! Then when its warmed up its still think and yummy!

[bbro]

Good to know I actually cooked the pasta separate with this batch so it doesn't soak up all the broth.

I just googled it and it looks like people have trouble getting the gel. Looks like I am just lucky. Two times I made home made broth, I got the gel - this time with just a turkey breast!

[Clodfobble]

That's very weird. The gelatin comes from hooves and bones--that's where actual packets of gelatin come from--so if you just boil meat with no bones you should never get gelatin. On the other hand, it doesn't take much bone to gelatinize even a big pot of soup, and there is a little gelatin in cartilage, so maybe there was a chunk of cartilage still attached to the turkey breast.

[sad_winslow]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

That's very weird. The gelatin comes from hooves and bones--that's where actual packets of gelatin come from--so if you just boil meat with no bones you should never get gelatin. On the other hand, it doesn't take much bone to gelatinize even a big pot of soup, and there is a little gelatin in cartilage, so maybe there was a chunk of cartilage still attached to the turkey breast.

bone, cartilage, and tendon: all good gelatin sources. It doesn't take a whole lot of any of them to turn a soup into meat jello You're probably right that it's some cartilage hanging around in there, even if it's a "boneless" store-cooked rotisserie breast.

[bbro]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

That's very weird. The gelatin comes from hooves and bones--that's where actual packets of gelatin come from--so if you just boil meat with no bones you should never get gelatin. On the other hand, it doesn't take much bone to gelatinize even a big pot of soup, and there is a little gelatin in cartilage, so maybe there was a chunk of cartilage still attached to the turkey breast.

I think I see where the confusion is - it was a bone in turkey breast that I roasted and cleaned off. This was definitely a hunk of bone with some meat and I left the icky parts and skin on while simmering.

[sexobon]

Pizza with peperoni, mushrooms, and anchovies.


I'm a rebel.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Bacon & Banana, no anchovies.