So, on the way back home, I decided to go through a small hill just to see if I will find any mushrooms there. It was the same area I had found my very first wild (edible) mushroom, a parasol, some three weeks ago.

As I was returning on my bicycle, I had to carry it on my shoulder to climb up, as there's no path that goes up that hill. That meant that less than five minutes later, I was looking for a place to leave my bike so I could search around on foot - and the moment I leave my bike, hurray, a parasol mushroom!

Unfortunately it was too old to eat, but right next to it was what looked like honey mushrooms (which turned out to be something completely different), and as I keep walking down I see the most delightful thing - two oyster mushrooms!

After taking the spore print (which looks just beauuuuutiful) to make sure they are indeed oyster mushrooms, I cooked them (OBVIOUSLY!) and ate them (even more obviously..).

I cut them in stripes and sautéed them, then poured some white wine, and after it evaporated I added some tomato and onion (two vegetables which just constantly hang around my cupboards), caramelised all of them together (mit honey), added some flour and seasonings, and then added a beaten egg.

You have two choices here: you can either eat them as-is, like an omelette, or..

you can mix them up, add some cheese to melt, and add on top of butter-fried slices of home-made bread!

Tastes absolutely deliciously, and they go very, very well with egg. They don't have a strong flavour, but they add a tasty touch when you mix them with other flavours.

MMMmmmmmmm!

Roast potatoes are good on their own, or as a side for other dishes. In Greece, for example, we serve roast potatoes with roast chicken, although the recipe is slightly different than this.

This is more like roast potatoes on their own; if you'd like to use them as a side/accompaniment to other dishes, it'd be better to tone-down the taste of the roast potatoes by using less spices and/or ingredients.

ingredients

3 large potatoes (OBVIOUSLY!)
1 onion
1 tomato
olive oil
a little bit of white wine (maybe ½ cup?)
honey (yes, honey)
thyme
salt and pepper to taste

to serve
slices of CHEESE (YEAH!)
some paprika

1. Wash and chop the tomato, the onion, and the potatoes in relatively small pieces (if you want larger pieces, then you'll need to cook the potatoes for longer).

2. Boil the potatoes for about 5-7'.

3. Drain the potatoes (you can use the water to make rye bread, if you want), and put in an oven pan together with the onion and tomato, spices, some olive oil and the wine, and toss around (make sure there isn't too much liquid on the bottom of the pan - if there is, about 30' before you take the potatoes out, pour some of the liquid off). Add some honey (I put about 4 tbsp, but I like my honey..), and mix again.

4. Place in a pre-heated oven at about 180-200˚C (360-400˚F), or gas mark 7, and cook for about an hour (maybe a bit more, depending on how big the pan is, and how small the potatoe pieces are). Make sure you mix the stuff in the pan around a couple of times throughout that hour, to make sure they don't stick on the pan.

5. Take them out when they look fantastic (i.e. when they are crispy and and a bit brown on the outside, but soft and nice on the inside) and serve immediately, with cheese to melt and paprika to taste! MMMMMMMM...

So this is how french toast look like. Not that it is any more French than it is Slovakian. Nor is it a toast. It's just bread. With egg.

ingredients

2 eggs
3-4 slices of bread (not toast bread, preferably!)
1-2 tbsp milk
½ tsp sugar (or vanilla sugar, if available)
less than ½ tsp cinnamon (or more - to taste)
1 tbsp butter

1. Mix everything together in a bowl.

2. Soak the slices of bread in the mixture, and then fry in the butter.

3. Serve.

Hard, innit?

And guess what - you can use ANY ingredients you want! You can make it savoury by adding salt, pepper and oregano, or you can make it more complicated by adding cooked mushrooms, onions and grated zucchini.

Can I be more obvious?!


If you make the cinnamon one, it goes very very well with jam and/or honey. But also with cheese, for some bizarre reason.

These are some wood blewits (Lepista nuda) I picked today on my way back home. They look beautiful, and they have a very pleasant fragrance (when you slice them, they smell like frozen orange juice!).

It is VERY important that you cook these mushrooms. They can cause indigestion if eaten raw, but if you cook them they turn into mMMmm-ly delicious mushrooms.

I had them sautéed in butter with onions, tomatoes and some cheese, and some salad to accompany them. Of course, that's a terrible thing to do if you hate salad.

ingredients

some wood blewits
½ onion
1 tomato
1 tbsp butter (maybe a bit more)
1 tbsp honey (yes, honey)
1 tsp dried yarrow leaves (or dill, if not available) (or thyme...)
salt and pepper to taste

(oh, and cheese) (yeah, lots of cheese) (well, not really..) (just some)

1. Slice the mushrooms neatly (no maggots please!) and chop the onion and tomato.

2. Put the butter in the frying pan (hot fire) and when it melts put the mushrooms in the pan. Toss around often for the next 3-4 minutes (make sure they're well cooked - but don't overcook them because they will start losing their taste) (once they look a bit brown/darker, and they have shrunk quite a bit, they should be ready)

3. Sprinkle the yarrow over the mushrooms (in the pan) just a few seconds before you take them out. Put on a plate, and start frying the onion and tomato (you might need a bit more butter). You can toss the mushrooms in the pan again before you eat, if they're a bit cold.

4. Add salt and pepper to taste (to the stuff in the pan), as well as any other herbs you want (thyme, yarrow etc). A bit before you take them out, pour the honey on them and mix quickly (the honey will become very fluid very quickly).

5. Put them on the plate, and quickly put a couple of very thin slices of cheese on them, so it melts and looks NICE. And voilà!


You can also use sautéed mushrooms in omelettes, or with roast potatoes. Robert Mabey, in his "Food for Free" (2004) suggests that wood blewits in particular make really good stewing mushrooms, but I haven't tried it myself. But I have heard that if you use them in a sauce, for example, you have to make sure the other stuff are not too strong in taste, otherwise you will lose the taste of the mushrooms. And that's not very good with nice little wood blewits which you've picked yourself, is it?