Skip to main content

Paw Paw, Hen of the woods season - more free food

The free food that turns up on our property never ceases to amaze me.
It's gastronomic heaven.   You may remember the Morels and the neighbors eggs.

Free Morels

Then the wild asparagus:
Free Asparagus
Not to mention the mountains of blackberries that we harvested this year:


This is the season.   This weekend we found to wonderful bounties.   The first was our annual Paw Paw harvest.  We've had a bumper crop this year and took several of them to A Tavola where Bonnie made some amazing Paw Paw sorbetto.   If you go to the restaurant they have it on the menu.  A rare culinary experience.

For those of you who don't know Paw Paw it is an amazing native fruit in the US.   Went out of popularity when supermarkets and mass production took over.  It does not keep or travel well.

It's sort or a cross between a banana and a mango.

Paw Paw straight off the tree

When it is soft you can cut it in half to reveal the flesh and the pits:

Freshly cut
The Pits have to be removed as they are bitter and cannot be eaten:

Exposed pits

Pits removed

Juicy flesh
Ready to eat

Once you have removed the pits you can eat the sweet, custardy flesh.   It's such an unusual, aromatic flesh.  A complex taste that changes as you eat it.  Unlike anything else I've ever tasted. 

Then, just to add to the excitement of the weekend. We were walking in our woods and I saw this mushroom.  I was sure it was Hen of the Woods.

Hen of the Woods
What did I do?  Checked on facebook...crowd sourced mushroom identification.   Risky, I know but I've cooked with Hen of the Woods before and I was sure that it smelled and looked right.

I must have picked about 5-8lb of the beautiful fungus.   As soon as I got it home I was itching to clean it and roast it.  
Cleaned

And cooked for breakfast with toast and scrambled eggs



Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 1, 2012 at 6:40 AM

    OK, so I'm in love with mushrooms, and Hen of The Woods is probably the loveliest of them all! I can imagine your excitement when you first came across your first one. Someday, I would like to live in a place where I could walk out into my yard and find something besides a Toadstool! Best of luck to you and yours.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 4, 2014 at 8:44 PM

    I saw one n a neighbors front yard one time,,he thought it was killing his oak tree. (lol) I took care of it for him.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paradox farm

If you wander along Springtown Road, past DeJoux House, you will see our mailbox opposite the front door.  It's not especially distinguishable except it is rather large and sits on an old tree stump.  It's a rusty old thing but it seems to have survived the snow plows and drunk drivers of Springtown Road. It has always bothered me that on the side of the mail box you can see the vague outline of the words "Paradox Farm" which was clearly a name that DeJoux House was more recently referred to.  Occasionally when wondering the fields I would stumble across some incongruity and wonder if that was indeed the "paradox" that the farm was named after. Yesterday morning, for some unknown reason, I decided it was time to resolve the paradox.  I sent a quick email to the previous owner June Finer to see if she knew anything of the Paradox Farm ghost on the side of the mailbox. This was her reply: once upon a time we, (myself and russell gilmore---my ex), met a
3 comments
Read more

Inspiration for the future look

Daniel has found some wonderful reference materials for keeping the history and character yet not making it a museum. I love the big kitchen table plan for the kitchen inspired by Lutyens and some "behind the scenes" pictures of victorian kitchens. He also showed me some country houses from Axel Vervoordt that I really love. http://bit.ly/uX1eW Simple, authentic yet modern. We discussed putting a full length plate glass window in the old hay loft window on the end of the house. Wow. I can't wait.
1 comment
Read more

Maria Deyo - a chilling tale

We arrived at the house this weekend to meet with the contractors who had poured concrete in the basement on Friday. When we arrived we found a family standing in front of the house taking pictures. Being the friendly types we are, we went over to chat. They told us they were on a haunted house tour and were looking at the house because their daughter had been talking about the ghost at our house for the last couple of days. She had bought a book called "Spooky Hudson Valley" and in it was the story of Maria Deyo and a tragic tale of a mother killing all three children and then killing herself. The family were wonderful and excited to be shown the house. They showed us the book and at the beginning of the story was a picture of our house. The book went on to say that Maria sent the men to the fields and then she slit her daughter's throat and the throat of her other two children...then killed herself. All this happened on September 13 th 1801. There was
10 comments
Read more