Ducks?

I grew up in a place in rural Missouri where waterfowl hunting is a strange and foreign activity that no one understands, nor is particularly interested in, similar to Tai-Chi or football. If we saw a duck while boating down on the Gasconade River, we’d say, “Hey look, guys. There’s a duck!” and that’s about as far as it went.

But duck is on the menu, so duck I will pursue. The first thing to know about waterfowl hunting is that there is a lot you need to know. Consider this unedited excerpt from the waterfowl hunting procedure page on the Missouri Department of Conservation website:

“The Quick Draw System will allocate 80% of the available hunting spots; and the remaining 20% of the hunting spots will be allocated through the “poor line” drawing system. Hunters selected through the Quick Draw System are guaranteed an opportunity to go afield, but are not guaranteed the best locations. Hunters drawn through the Quick Draw system will know their “pill number” prior to arriving at the waterfowl area. Waiting list hunters trying their luck in the “poor line” drawing at Bob Brown, Columbia Bottom, Eagle Bluffs, Grand Pass, Marais Temps Clair, Otter Slough, and Ten Mile Pond Conservation Areas will be using the Every Member Draws (EMD) procedure…”

I would need a mentor. To establish this I once again tapped into Ann’s vast network of contacts, and was connected to Bill Ward. Apparently Bill is to ducks what Chris Morrow is to catfish (see my blog post from August 31, Big Fish on the Mighty Mississipp http://www.woodstofood.com/2011_08_01_archive.html.)

Bill told me what I need to bring (I’m glad he reminded me of the lead prohibition), and said he would see me at the draw on opening morning. The draw is at 5:15 a.m. on opening morning, and Bill said he always gets there at least an hour early. The time he actually gets up to go to the draw is irrelevant to his sleep.

“I can never sleep the night before opening day anyway; I’m too excited,” he said.

This excitement has not faded in Bill not missing a single duck season in the last 50 years. Fifty years! He’s not even 60 years old.

Ann’s Dad scored a pair of waders for me on a garage sale for $2.50, not bad considering new ones cost about $100 and go up (way up) from there. The boot size fits me perfectly, and the body size gives me ample room to pack something about the size of a couple bales of hay in my back pockets.

Considering that my previous waterfowl identification experience is limited to distinguishing between Donald and Daffy, I’m studying information about the fowl that I’m about to pursue. I have a fresh box of #3 steel shot (I didn’t know there was a #3 shot size), and I’m looking forward to what the next weekend has in store.  

Fish Stories

It’s been a warm October, so we thought we’d better get in some more fishing while we can. We headed back to the same pond on my parent’s farm, only this time we purchased some crickets due to lack of grasshoppers, and Ann’s parent’s joined us.

We got a few bites off the crickets right away, but didn’t get anything hooked. I put fresh ones on the hooks, and started to leave to go on turkey patrol, when Henry hooked and pulled in a nice blue gill. I gave him a hand, and then took off for a quick walk in the woods in attempt to spot a turkey.

Bass and mushrooms

Ann’s Dad Gerard had caught a bass with a grasshopper lure when we first got there, but then had a lull as he slowly worked his way around the pond. His confidence was high, as a couple weeks before he was fishing in the Bourbuse River and caught a small mouth and large mouth bass at the same time. It was a small lure with a treble hook on both ends, and they both went for it at once, and both got hooked.

I wasn’t gone long, and when I got back Ann and her Mother Ruth were cleaning fish. Gerard had caught four more with his grasshopper lure. But now it was stuck on a limb overhanging the water. Gerard was leaning out for the limb, and Oliver was holding the pole on the other side of the tiny cove. The reel was on the bottom of the rod, and cranked the opposite way that Oliver was used to, so I took it from him, just as Gerard was getting the lure loose. I then reeled the lure in, and caught another bass on the way. The lure was only in the water for probably 10 feet or less, and just a few seconds.

The grasshopper lure had definitely proved itself, and the bite was getting hot, but it was time to head back to Columbia. However, we did now have enough fish on had to tackle some more recipes in Cooking Wild in Missouri.  

Cioppino, page 84

I gots one thing to say tonight. Well, one thing to say emphatically. I love this book! I LOVE COOKING WILD IN MISSOURI !

Tonight my folks came up and I made cioppino out of the book for dinner . It's a spicy seafood/wine/tomato stew using bass, shrimp and mussels in this case. The bass were from our fishing expotition this weekend.

Isn't it so fun to make a meal that people really enjoy? That is surely what took place with the cioppino. Apparently, cioppino was created in San Franscisco pre-WW II by Italian and Portuquese immigrants.  My parents, as luck would have it, love cioppino. Me, I'd never heard of it before. For my parents, who were familiar with the history of the dish, dinner gave them the sense of being in San Francisco at some marvelous restuarant by the ocean. They've attempted cioppino before and thought this recipe rivaled any they've tried. They adored the dinner and couldn't rave on it enough. Weeee.

Which brings me back to how much I like this recipe book. Not only is it encouraging Fred, the boys and me to get outside to hunt and gather more, the actual recipes are introducing us to some really wonderful foods that we haven't been exposed to. And, the recipes are pretty simple, too. They mostly are the kind of thing a person can make as a week day meal without being sorry!

Speaking of having a good night, how about those Cardinals?! Cioppino for dinner, then building a big fire in the fireplace and watching a game like that. Wowee. Can't offer better than that for our dinner guests, die hard Cardinals fans that they are. We are going into game #7 tonight. Hmm. No dinner plans yet. But, whatever it is, I'm pretty sure dinner is going to be secondary to el gamo.

Unfounded Fall Turkeys

The turkey that was prowling about my wife’s office hasn’t been seen in more than a week. I think he must have read the blog. So instead I took to the woods for firearms season.

Many turkey hunters will tell you they only hunt in the spring, because they enjoy the process of calling in a gobbler and think fall season is too easy. I think most of these hunters probably share the bond of having attempted to fall turkey hunt, only to go home in frustration after failing to find turkeys.

Turkeys move around in groups in the fall. My parent’s farm is a mix of crop fields, open pasture and woods. While there on Saturday my father and I checked behind every bush. No turkeys. I shared this information with my father-in-law, who was planning on hunting there later in the week. “But,” I said so as not to discourage him, “…there could be turkeys there the next week. Shoot there could even be turkeys there the next day.”

Actually, there were turkeys there in the next few minutes. The next morning in church, one of my Dad’s neighbors told him he had to stop in the road to let six turkeys cross. We had seen him on the road. The turkeys were crossing from a neighbor’s property onto our farm, less than five minutes after we had walked through this very small patch of woods (that they crossed into) trying to stir something up. But we didn’t know that until the next day. So the next day we went back, but the woods were again vacant.

I also tried hunting on a conservation area down in that part of the state. I found a bow hunter, and a few deer, but no turkeys.

But turkey hunting is really only fun in the spring anyway.

Pasta with Autumn Nut Sauce, pages 124-125

There are several recipes for pasta with nuts in the book. So far we've made penne pasta with nuts and squash, spaghetti with roasted vegies and nuts, and now pasta with autumn nut sauce. This recipe called for shell shaped pasta but while at the store I remembered how I couldn't shut the cabinet door for all the dry pasta I already had in, so I decided to go home and use what I had. Turns out upon further inspection, my pasta shelf was overfloweth with bunches of Asian noodes and just scraps of other kinds, so we ended up with a bit of an odd assortment, but that's ok. I can close the cabinet door now at least and know that I've got to get to crackin' with some Asian recipes soon, too.

We used some two dimensionally shaped green football pasta that I'm sure has a beautiful name that I am not aware of, mixed with a handful of orzo. The sauce for the recipe isn't cooked-it's just an assemblage of pecans, hickory nuts, two hard cheeses, butter, cream and a few other things I'm forgetting, likely. It's a simple dish.

I kind of liked the penne with squash recipe better, I think. Could be the fact that the pasta shape I used worked only medium well with the sauce. Could also be because I chickened out of using the amount of cream called for in the recipe. Speaking of penne with squash, that is the dish we served to the KBIA reporter. The story did air last Friday. You can hear it at http://www.kbia.org/post/clock-october-21-2011 and click on the listen button.

Persisting for Persimmons

One thing for sure about this project, help from friends has been key to success.

Ann had found a few persimmons locally, but not nearly enough. The trees she checked had already dropped their fruit, and there weren’t many to be found. There’s a go-to tree on my parent’s farm that always has an abundant crop. I know this not because I have previously harvested persimmons, but because it was always a good place to pick up a track back in my raccoon hunting days. But my dad reported the tree was bare this year.

Luckily, my sister Christy and her husband Mike were at the farm at the same time as us. He knew of a tree at the neighbor’s house where he used to pasture his horses. We went there together, but it was also void of fruit. But he knew one more place: a cattle ranch that he co-manages a few miles up the road had a tree that he had seen laden with fruit just a few days before.

A few miles and a few gates later, the four of us were at the tree that did indeed have a bountiful persimmon crop. Most were still on the tree. We picked what we could from the ground, and then stood on the back of Mike’s truck and picked some more.

It’s our understanding that persimmons aren’t ripe, and are very sour, until they’ve experienced the first freeze. These persimmons had not, and we were debating what to do with persimmons that weren’t tree ripe. Put them on a window sill like tomatoes? Put them in a brown paper bag like peaches?

On the way out of the pasture, we saw Albert, the owner of the ranch. He asked if we had gathered enough for a pie. “Yes, but we’re not sure if they’re good yet,” we replied. “Just put them in the freezer for a little while,” Albert said.

Huh. That makes sense. Just artificially replicate that first hard freeze. So we’re giving that a try. Cooking Wild in Missouri has four persimmon recipes, so I hope that it works.  

Picking Walnuts

I took up walnut gathering at a young age. My friend Travis and I would roam the farm on a three-wheeler, pulling a little trailer that we would fill with bags of nuts, and at the end of the season we would load them all up in the truck and my dad would take us to a local buyer to sell them.

This weekend, about 30 years after Travis and I did our gleaning, I revisited those same trees with Ann and the boys. The trees haven’t changed much. I don’t think any have died, nor have they grown a noticeable amount. Walnuts tend to be an every-other-year crop on most trees, and the five mature walnuts in our yard in Columbia are on an off-year, producing some, but not a lot. And a lack of hickory nuts have put extra squirrel pressure on the walnut trees at our house. So the farm was our next-best option. We didn’t find many under the first trees we checked at the farm, but I kept following my memories to specific trees, and we ended up finding all we wanted.

Walnuts usually sell for about 10 cents per pound hulled. A hulled walnut weighs a lot less than a big green one. To give you an approximate scale, my sister piles the bed of her husband’s Ford F-350 truck high with sacks of walnuts, and can get about $60 worth on one load. She picks up a couple loads a year like that.

The walnuts that grow in Missouri are black walnuts, and are very different than English walnuts. You’re most likely to have encountered their distinctive flavor in black walnut ice cream.

All the walnuts purchased by buyers in Missouri and the surrounding states end up in Stockton, MO, at Hammons Black Walnuts.  Hammons has 250 buying stations, or hullers, in a 16 state area. They sell black walnuts directly to the food industry for products like black walnut ice cream, and even sell the hulls, which are used as an abrasive for polishing metal, as a filter to separate crude oil from water, in cosmetics and in dynamite.

If you don’t want to crack your own nuts, Hammons also has a retail division. You can purchase pure, wild black walnuts from them, or candy-coated nuts at their website www.hammonsproducts.com. The website will also tell you everything you ever wanted to know about walnuts.

Full disclosure, I’m acquainted with Brian Hammons through my employer, the United Methodist Church. Brian is the laity leader for the UMC in Missouri. He volunteers a ton of time to the church, and is an all-around great guy. 

I was happy to share my walnut-gathering heritage with my family this weekend, even if it was a little hard for the boys to stay on task. Come to think of it, Travis and I probably weren’t that speedy back in the day either. I think I remember my split of the take being something around $14 after a season of harvesting.

Pecan-Orange Granola, page134-135

I've always wanted to make granola but never have had the nerve. It seems like lots of granola I get that isn't in boxes in the cereal isle tends to be a tad limp. I figured whatever I would make would turn out the same. Here's another benefit of our Woods to Food project: It has helped me try cooking methods and kinds of recipes that I have been fearful of-like bread dough and granola, for instance.
I made a 1/2 batch of the granola because a whole batch makes a gallon and that seemed like a lot of potentially soggy, expensive ingredients. The granola was easy and fun to make, heating oil, orange juice and honey and pouring it over the dry ingredients and then baking it. I probably overbaked the granola a bit because I was waiting for it to crisp up, but that happened in the cooling process, not during baking. The granola baked while dinner was baking, we added the dried fruit and orange zest once cooled, and it was ready to jar up by the time dinner was over. I brought the jar of granola with us to visit Fred's parents at their farm this weekend. We had it for breakfast and to snack on. So far it is keeping it's crispness nicely. I do wonder how granola you buy at the store is clumpy. This granola is loose and therefore as a snack is a bit hard to eat. When the oats, nuts and fruit clump together, it does make chunks to grab hold of.
At any rate, I like traveling with a jar of homemade granola. Sometimes eating the way you like to eat is difficult when traveling, but not so with 1/2 gallon of granola at your side.

Mom's Oatmeal Cookies with Hickory Nuts, page 122

One cup of hickory nuts. One mere cup of hickory nuts. Doesn't sound like a bit deal, does it? Well, after I started cracking them, one cup of deshelled nuts became as valuable as a cup of gold nuggets. I now remember the only other time I've cracked hickory nuts. Fred and I cracked a jar of them 15 years ago and were shocked by how long it took to make a pile of nuts. We ended up stupidly letting the whole jar go rancid because they were just too valuable to us. How was I ever going to be able to toss a whole cup of nuts into a cookie recipe? Cookies are something you munch on without thought, a portable dessert meant to be taken for granted. One cup of hickory nuts in cookies? This wasn't going to be easy for me.

Answer to our problem: slave labor. My cousins came over for a visit on a bright, sunny day to give their kiddos and ours time to play. And, what's better to do on a pretty Fall day than to crack hickory nuts with your loved ones? I felt like Tom Sawyer trying to convince them what a good time cracking hickory nuts was with a cheap smile on my face. I traded his paint brush for a nut cracker! When in Missouri, eh?

Within an hour we had cracked the whole pile and a margarine container full of beautiful nut meats was our prize. Man, was that ever a lot funner that doing them all ourselves. My cousins ended up bringing dinner over that evening and I promised to make cookies with hickory nuts for dessert. If I was going to poor a cup of the nuts in a cookie recipe, at least they were going to be enjoyed by a lot of people.

In the book, Bernadette, the Cooking Wild in Missouri author, notes that she has been making these oatmeal cookies for her dad since she was eight years old. My parents happened to be visiting, also, so I was able to make the same recipe for my dad. There was something bonding about that. And, our neighbor came by for  a visit as well so I sent him home with a plateful of cookies-after I told him the sweat and blood it took to make the little babies.
The cookies are chewy and satisfying with  cup of coconut as well as nuts in them. They taste like something by grandmother would have made.
They were heartily enjoyed by neighbors, cousins, kids, parents and us. And, sharing cookies with those folks was a load funner than hoarding a jar of rancid nuts.

Talking Turkey

After taking a half-hearted but enjoyable stab at the early urban deer season, I returned to my bow. Firearms turkey season is in full swing, and I’m more likely to poke a hole in a bull’s-eye with a shotgun than an arrow, but the particular turkey I’m after is a resident of Columbia. He lives under the protection of city ordinances that prevent discharging a firearm within the city limits. Yet I must pursue him. He’s been bothering my wife. It’s personal.

Ann had been seeing this turkey strutting about the area where she works. He had a defiant air about him. She wanted him dead, and in the kitchen. I’m a man, how could I turn her down?

I had now done just enough archery practice to establish that I would be lethal at close range. By close range, I mean about the same distance that people stand from the dart board in a bar. But Ann was confident in me. “You can do it,“ she said. “I was over at the building that I always see him next to, and he wasn’t even paying attention to me.”

Yes, the building. Although Ann’s office is on a small conservation area in Columbia with an acreage of woods, the turkey that she is seeing is right at her office, by the parking area, near an old house that they used for storage.

Although it’s convenience to our home couldn’t be better, I was nervous about hunting at a place called “Central Regional Headquarters.” Multiple conservation agents, who enforce hunting regulations, work there. They are friendly, straight up people, who work hard to protect wildlife and help keep hunters safe. I did not intend to do anything illegal. But to hunt in their backyard makes me nervous. It’s like having a highway patrol car on your back bumper when you’re driving down the road. The whole time I think, “No need to be nervous, I’m not doing anything wrong,” while I stare at the patrol car my review mirror and just wait for the lights to start rolling.

But what could I do? With four more turkey recipes in Cooking Wild in Missouri, Ann couldn’t put up with this turkey taunting her, harassing her, the first thing in the morning at work every day. I’d have to take him out, or at least scare him off.

So after agreeing to do the hit, I called Ann at work when she got there.  No sign of him. So I go to my office, only to arrive to find my message light blinking. It’s a voicemail from Ann. “He’s out there again, right out in the open. I’ve been watching him. You’ve got to come get him. He’s huge.”

 I make a quick motorcycle ride back home, I grab some camo, my bow, and head to Ann’s office in the truck. She meets me in the parking lot. “He was right over there,” she says, pointing to the old house.

I’ve put a camouflage rain jacket on over my work clothes, and have slipped on a mesh camouflage mask. Camo waste up, waste down I’m in black slacks and brown leather wingtips. As I begin to stalk around to the backside of the house, I begin to question my camo.  Is this the appropriate way to hide when I’m in a yard? Maybe it would be more effective to dress as a groundskeeper. I could be pretending to put new string on my weed-eater, and then when the turkey walks by, I shout “Surprise, Tommy!” and spin around to face him with my bow drawn.

No, that might be effective, but it would just be too silly. I continued to stalk around the house, moving silently thanks to the freshly mowed and raked lawn. “That will make it easy find my arrows after I miss,” I tell myself.

I’m also well aware that despite my camo, I’m in full site of the office, and I’m possible being watched, perhaps by several people. I considered that when I see the turkey, I should ceremoniously blindfold myself before I let an arrow fly. Considering my archery skills, being blindfolded wouldn’t really affect my odds of hitting the turkey all that much. And if it did hit it blindfolded, the moment would be legendary.

But I didn’t have the chance. Once I circled the house, it was clear that the turkey was no longer there. As I started to walk back to the office, Ann pulled up in her truck. “I just saw him on the hill by the driveway.”

It was just like in the movies, where the hero is on a bogus trail while the bad guy continues causing tormenting someone elsewhere. Ann takes off to her meeting, and I walk down the hill, hoping he’s still there, not riding with her because I don’t want to be hunting from a vehicle.

No sign of him. Apparently he had crossed the road onto private property, a safe haven for him.

I’ve killed some turkeys before. I know they are very wary. I’ve heard all the folklore. “A turkey can see a 300-degree arc without moving its head.” “A turkey can see you blink at 100 yards.” “A turkey can hear a car door open half a mile away.” “A turkey can tell the difference between a Windsor knot and Cavendash in the dim light of an evening party.”  Attempting to sneak up on a turkey within my very limited archery range would be challenging.

But Ann thinks this is a different kind of turkey. He seems cavalier. Perhaps he’s unaware that you can archery hunt in the city limits, and thinks that he is safe in the presence of numerous game wardens.

The next day I tried the more traditional method of arriving before sunrise, hiding and waiting. No sign of him. Two days later Ann joined me. Again, nothing.

But Ann’s still watching for you, turkey. And I’m keeping my bow handy.

Penne with Squash, page 126, and Upside-Down Pear Pecan Gingerbread

Company's coming! Friday evening my folks and a reporter with KBIA (91.3 FM, public radio station here in town) came for dinner. We served penne pasta with pecans, parmesan, delicata squash, sage, etc (from the book), chicken, French bread and salad. Very nice and satisfying. For dessert we made an upside-down pear pecan gingerbread, also from the book-two recipes in one night!

The radio reporter came to learn more about our Woods to Food project. She came over for almost three hours starting with the preparing of dinner and staying though dessert. But, guess what? She didn't eat with us. Apparently, eating with the people you are interviewing is a journalism no-no. What do you think of that? I felt like a drug pusher trying to entice Scarlett (that's the reporter's name) to please eat, but she stuck to her journalism ethics and refrained from even a cup of coffee. Man, did I feel like running out to her car and slipping in a plate of food wrapped in tin foil. But, I could tell that wouldn't have worked with her either.

It was interesting for us to have Scarlett over and I think interesting for her, too. I showed her how long it look to deshell a cup of pecans (about 5 minutes for ones that are already cracked) verses the time it takes to crack hickory nuts (I think one cup of hickory nuts take about 1 gazillion hours to shell). The piece she recorded is going to air Friday the 21st at 5:20 or 5:30, not sure which. Scarlett is KBIA's Art and Culture reporter and has a regular spot at that time.

It was fun to share another of our Woods to Food project meals with my parents, as well. They really enjoyed both the pasta/squash dish and the dessert and bragged up a storm about them. We all liked the cake with whipped cream and would recommend the pairing if you make the cake which is moist, pretty, unique and mui tasty.

What a pleasant fall evening. After dinner we took a walk over to campus to see the MU homecoming house decs while my cousin took our oldest to paintball zombies. Cooking with squash, nuts and pears, MU homecoming rituals and attacking zombies--happy Friday night in October!

It's Pecan Time, Baby

Yesterday I finally got pecans from a guy I've been wanting to purchase from for years and it was just a great experience. Because of doing the Woods to Food project, I'm more aware this year of when wild foods are in season. I remembered a fellow with a pecan orchard right in Columbia and called him this year early asking if he had any for sale, rather than too late or forgetting to call at all like I've done in years past. Yesterday we met up at his place, Montgomery Pecan Farms, and he was kind enough to show me around a bit. Fascinating.
Pecans, like many nut trees, produce heavily one year and lightly the next. And, this is a light year. In fact, pecans, hickories and persimmons are all having light years. White oaks, however, are having an absolute bumper crop of acorns this year (not that I'm planning on eating the acorns).
Anyhow, Mr. Mongomery showed me the sheller machine and drying racks for the pecans. He has several varieties and keeps them all separate. Some produce a larger nut, some a smaller nut with more flavor, etc. He showed me the cracking machine he has and the machine that takes quite a bit of the shell off the pecans. He sells pecans cracked and somewhat deshelled in 5 1/2 pound bags. Each bag yields about 3 pounds of actual pecan nut meats. His operation is so tidy and well organized. Not that this is saying much, but I told him his shop was cleaner than my house. And, Mr. Montomery is such a wealth of knowledge on pecans-like a pecan rocket scientist. I just loved listening to all the interesting details there are to know about raising pecans.
For instance, Mr. Mongomery was telling me, and I'm going to butcher this a bit but I'll try to get it right, that one frustration with raising pecans is that they produce lighter crops about every other year. He has a pretty steady customer base and hates to disappoint them on the light years by turning customers away. So, last summer, in 2010, he tried to do something about that. Mr. Mongomery could tell he was going to have a great crop of pecans last year. They were at a stage where they were not ripe yet, but certainly were many, many on the trees. He knew that pecan trees signal to themselves how many nuts to set for the next year by the number of pecans they have on their trees the summer previous. So, in an attempt to even out the two years' crops, so he used his mechanical tree shaker he normally puts on the trees once the pecans are ripe to drop the nuts and shook the tree much earlier to cause several the unripened nuts to fall in the bumper year. This then signals to the tree that next year they better put on a crop of nuts because they lost several the year previous. He said that the task of shaking the trees early in the season is much more difficult that at harvest time this time of year. Early in the season, there is an abundance of sap flowing and the bark is much looser on the tree making it very easy to slip the bark when you are shaking it. Later in the season, like now, you can shake the trees without the risk of slipping the bark because it's stuck fast to the tree. Isn't that interesting? Anyhow, eventually I bought a couple bags of pecans, and left such a happy camper.
Previously, I'd bought a small bag of pecans from Missouri at a supermarket just to keep me going in recipe making, but now I have a wealth of pecans and got to buy them from an orchard right in town.
Pecan recipes, here we come!

Spaghetti with Roasted Cauliflower and Pecans, page127

Several people have asked me if we started at the beginning on the Cooking Wild in Missouri book and are working our way from front to back, like the Julie/Julia Project. Actuaully we are not able to do that. The reason is that our family is hunting and gathering for the recipes, so our schedule is dictated by hunting seasons and when wild nuts, fruits, and mushrooms ripen. There are a few wild ingredients that can be purchased but many cannot. For instance, wild duck and venison are not available for purchase as far as I know. However, some wild ingredients can be purchased such as black walnuts and pecans. Thus far we have been able to make several recipes from catfish, squirrel, venison from last year's deer harvest (all from Fred's hunting), elderberries, hickory nuts and pecans. And, I had a couple trout in the freezer from a local trout farmer so we used that as well.
Last night we made spaghetti with roasted cauliflower and pecans. Totally yummy. With whole wheat pasta, pecans, olives, roasted veggies and romano cheese, this is a hardy vegetarian meal. I kind of like to have a few vegetarian recipes up my sleeve so I can make dinner for our vegetarian friends and will definitely add this to my mental list. Really, it's not doing this recipe justice to list it as just something you'd serve if you have to make a vegetarian dish. It's very rich, full flavored and scrumptios and I'd love to encorporate this dish into my more regular cooking routine.
That's one of the fun aspects of our Woods to Food project. I am used to flipping through a cookbook and finding a recipe that looks good to me and is something I think I can tackle. But, by trying all the recipes in a book, it helps a person expand their taste and cooking skills as well. And, since Cooking Wild . . . has such variety of recipes, and relatively easy to make recipes, and so many recipes that actually work and are tasty, working through the book has been a really successful project for us thus far.

Sweet-and-Sour Catfish, pages 92-93

All hail the last catfish recipe in the book-sweet and sour catfish. Why did we save this one for last you ask? Because it's SWEET AND SOUR CATFISH for goodness sake. The recipe contains three columns of ingredients, includes batter frying and by the picture looks like the aim is to make something that resembles take out Chinese from your local neighborhood strip mall. To put it in true British fashion, it was not the recipe I was most eager to try.

You know what though, this recipe doesn't take itself too seriously and made for quite a fun evening. With all the local ingredients/from scratch cooking I have been doing, Fred's had a craving for a frozen pizza and I know what he means. We made hot dogs the other night and I was really excited about it. They were like a cleanser between courses. Hog dogs as a cleanser: tee hee hee. Bernadette writes in the book that this recipe is included because she took a Chinese cooking class in the disco era and suggests cranking up Saturday Night Fever with this meal. I was afraid the closest we were going to have was Lionel Richie, which makes me giggle; Fred found our ABBA album and we played that instead, thank goodness. ABBA and and sweet-and-sour catfish, that will put a smile across your face and some funk in your step.

Actually, I liked the dinner pretty well. Our son Henry really enjoyed it. I've probably never ordered sweet-and-sour at a Chinese restuarant so it's obviously not my favorite kind of dish. I would say if you do dig sweet-and-sour dishes, this recipe is going to get you what you are looking for. I don't know why this surprised me but the recipe does taste just like it's from a Chinese restuarant. And, I did appreciate a more vegetable filled meal. One more thing, honestly I really liked the batter fried catfish in the dish. Catfish is such a soft meat it kind of needs a backbone like crisp batter to hold it up, figuratively speaking.

Now I've got a recipe under my belt should I ever hear that someone's favorite meal is sweet-and-sour Chinese. That and I caught a glance of Henry dancing to ABBA!!!

Bernadette's Catch All Muffins, pages 120-121

Ooo. I just remembered that this recipe is also available electronically so I can share it with you as well. I'll do that now:

From Cooking Wild in Missouri:  

Bernadette’s Catch-All Muffins

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 1∕3 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda, sifted

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

1 cup boiling water

3 cups wheat bran
1 cup golden raisins (or part dried cranberries, dates or figs)
1 cup pecans or hickory nuts (toasted lightly, preferably)

Blend together first four ingredients (sugar through salt) in one bowl and next three ingredients (oil through buttermilk) in another. Then, gently mix all seven together.
Meanwhile, pour water over bran and fruit in a separate bowl; let stand a few minutes, then stir and gently combine with the batter. Stir in nuts. Pour into medium-sized muffin tins lined with paper cups. (Batter also will keep in refrigerator for at least a week.)
Bake in a 400ºF oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in muffin’s center comes out clean. Turn muffins onto a rack to cool.
Makes about 20 muffins

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Do you like bran muffins? I love bran muffins. In fact, I love muffins, period. They are so appetizing, don't you think? At the farmer's market there are pear and ginger muffins, raspberry and almond muffins, maple sugar and pecan muffins . . . all these delightful combinations of yumminess. I am surprised by how few places sell bran muffins, however. They are great and good for you, too. To me, a bran muffin with fruit and tea or coffee is a pretty fantastic way to start your day. And, Bernadette's recipe did not fail to disappoint. Once in a while, I'll try a bran muffin recipe that tried too hard to be healthy and ends up tasting like a dietitian's muffin that was rolled across the floor of a carpenter's shop-way too dry and woody. It's a shame because bran muffins like that give all the rest a bad name. A good bran muffin is awesome and helps you feel good and be healthy, too. I may not be too worldly, but bran muffin-wise I've tried out a few in my day (I say while while thumming my suspenders and spitting chaw) and Bernadette's are first rate.

And, I have a secret to tell. When Hy-vee first opened in Columbia they were selling organic dried blueberries for $2/pound in the bulk area. That's crazy cheap. I knew it must be a mistake but the price was written twice on the bulk bin so I . . . well basically I took advantage of the situation and bought crazy amounts of dried blueberries before the price rose. Eventually, someone caught the error and now the blueberries are $20.00/pound, which I will never buy. Not that I don't stroll by the bulk section about every time I'm in that store just to make sure the price hasn't changed. Anyway, I used the dried blueberries, which I had frozen, in the muffins. They were great-a smidgen tainted with guilt, but the overpowering flavor was, MAN WHAT A DEAL!

Mushrooms in the Fall

Perusing the various recipes of the book to make sure we weren’t missing anything that’s seasonal right now, we found several recipes involving mushrooms. Like the typical amateur Missouri outdoors people, we have both hunted, found, cooked and consumed various Missouri morels, but our mushroom experience stopped there. These other “mushrooms” growing in the woods were ignored, if we saw them at all.

But morels grow in the spring, perhaps to give unsuccessful turkey hunters a means of survival. But this is October, and apparently some of these other so called mushrooms grow in the summer and fall. However, mushrooms rank right up there with skunks as the most feared living thing in the Missouri wild. We have Mushrooms Demystified, the mushroom hunter’s Bible, but we could use some more personal expertise. Then Ann was told of a program on wild Missouri mushrooms taking place at Rockbridge State Park, just a few miles from our home. Serendipity.

The program started at 10 a.m. on Saturday, so we had plenty of time to follow our morning routine of going to the Columbia Farmer’s Market. The market’s is an easy place to stay for awhile, though, and we were a little tardy to the mushroom program. And we met Ann’s cousin and kids at the market, and they joined us. The four kids, ages six to  10, love Rockbridge Park, and didn’t have a lot of patience for a two-hour talk on mushrooms. Frankly, the adults didn’t either, so after listening in a few minutes we took to the woods, baskets in hand and knives in pockets. It didn’t take us too long to find some small white mushrooms, the kind that look like a story-book drawing of a mushroom. This caused us to slow down, and once we started looking closely, at times pulling back the dried leaves, we found a lot more.

My parents would call these toad stools, and wouldn’t consider eating them, assuming that they are poisonous. But we knew we had mycological experts close at hand, so we harvested away and then returned to the program area to get a positive identification.

Three out of four of the experts told us that the mushrooms were probably safe to eat. The fourth withheld his opinion. No one would state their reputation on it, or seemed anxious to pop a handful into his mouth.

“Probably fine” wasn’t quite the seal of approval I was looking for from the experts, but we had gone to the trouble to harvest them, and they looked harmless enough, so we went ahead and gave them a try. Because they were not the type of mushrooms called for in any of the Cooking Wild in Missouri recipes, Ann just made them as a side dish to the rest of our dinner. She selected the freshest ones, but during the initial phase of cooking they looked like they might be a little slimy or rubbery. But when finished, they turned out quite good, and were enjoyed by children and adults alike. We didn’t get a recipe checked off the list with this one, but did have a good Woods To Food experience.

Early Season Urban-Zone Hunting

Since the four-day long urban deer season in sourthern Boone County snuck up on me last weekend, I wasn’t really prepared to go afield. And the high in the mid 80s didn’t feel much like deer season. But I got in a little hunting anyway, and didn’t really have to miss anything to do it.
I just left the alarm clock set at 5 a.m., my usual wake up time for my Tuesday/Thursday run. I showered and shaved so I’d be ready to head straight to work, but instead headed to some woods south of town. I was parking the truck at 5:40, and was in the woods where I wanted to be by 6 a.m. This time of year, the sky is still full of stars at that late hour. I watched them fade away as I waited for legal hunting time, one-half hour before sunrise. I didn’t see anything but squirrels that morning, but had a pleasant time watching the world wake up. And I made it to work by 7:45 a.m.
My busy Friday had me working through lunch, but I was able to take off in time to pick Henry up from Bridge club at 5 p.m. Then I picked up Ann and Oliver, and all four of us heading to the woods for a sunset hunt. On the hike in Ann and I showed the boys some caves we had spotted earlier. While they checked those out, I went further into the woods alone, hoping to set up in a clearing where they might scare one my way.
Unfortunately I did all the scaring, thanks to a thick layer of very crunchy leaves that covered the ground. I saw that all too familiar site of the white tail disappearing into the distance as I walked on to my sit-down spot. It was too far away to get a good look at it, and it just kept going.
I met back up with the family a little while later in a clearing, and we walked back to the truck together. By the time we reached the truck those same stars that I’d watched fade that morning were coming out again.

Since it was 7 p.m. and we were all hungry, there were no Woods To Food dinners on the table that night. We instead went out to a Mexican restaurant, which is pretty typical for us on a Friday night.

It wasn’t a successful hunt, but it really worked out pretty well. If I had got one in the morning, I would have had to miss work to deal with it, and if I had got one in the evening, it would have meant the whole family having a very late dinner while they waited for me to field dress it and drag it out of the woods. Coming home empty –handed was just fine this time.

Beans with Hickory Nuts and Feta, page 123

Bonus day. Yesterday while at the Columbia Farmer's Market I ran into Bernadette Dryden, author of the book we're working through, Cooking Wild in Missouri. I haven't had a chance to speak with her since we started the Woods to Food project. We had a nice visit about the book and our project. In fact, I had the book under my arm like a minister with his bible when I met Bernadette. I wanted to source the book so I could buy ingredients related to the recipes.
Speaking of the market, I LOVE Saturday mornings in Columbia and our family's little routine. It now starts with us all piling in the car and stopping by Kaldi's for a latte to go. They make awesome lattes. Then it's a bee-line to the farmer's market before the latte cools off for breakfast burritos and pastries and sometimes, OK often, honey ice cream. Ice cream for breakfast! Now there's a Saturday morning for you. Our boys have friends whose parents sell at the market. So a little gang of fellas run around the periphery of the market playing tag, sword fighting with cattails, or playing make believe games in the bushes and nearby dirt piles. There's most often lovely live music, and it's always a treat to see people you know while at the market. This Saturday I chatted with two of my cousins, my aunt, a coworker, Bernadette, our neighbor, waved to a friend, and helped my friend Jen for a bit in selling cheese in her market stall. Oh, and then we buy produce, this week apples and spinach. It's a rich, fresh happy time.

Cousin Laurie with dinner and honey mushrooms

We have finally got a small pile of hickory nuts shelled and there are several hickory nut recipes. I settled on beans with hickory nuts and feta because our good friends make wonderful, fresh feta that I could pick up at the market (Goatsbeard Farm). We have quite a few tomatoes in the garden, I happen to have lemons in and red peppers are in season so making this dish I was able to use several local or home grown ingredients. We had my cousin and her family over for dinner last night and served the dish (actually I used lentils rather than beans. Lentils are what is shown in the book's photo for this dish) with pork chops from a county fair pig we bought, a baguette from Uprise bakery (so good!), wild mushrooms and a mixed green salad. My cousin's husband has been roofing for a week and has lost 5 pounds from his already slim body so it was nice to see him fill his plate with a second round of the lentil dish. If you like lentils, I certainly would recommend this dish. I know you'll be very pleased. And if you have a farmer's market in your area, Fall is a great time to enjoy the bounty of what Missour's farms and gardens have to offer.

Get to Crackin'

Hey, everybody. Guess what. I've been given a a bag of hickory nuts. Can you believe that! What  a great email it was to recieve a message that a coworker of mine and his wife had been to the pecan festival in Brunswick and ran across a fellow selling hickory nuts. My coworker's  wife apparently is following the blog and knew we were having a hard time finding hickory nuts  so she bought a bag of them for me. How cool is that? Muchos thank yous, Diane. And, these are not just any hickory nuts. They are from the coveted shellbark hickory, the ones I told you about in an earlier post that make larger nuts than other kinds of hickories in Missouri. I feel like what Julie in the Julie/Julia Project must have felt like when her fans started sending her money to help  her pay for the expensive ingredients found in  Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I spent about a half hour cracking the nuts. And, I'm up to about 2 tablespoons of nut meats. Clearly, I'm going to need to take a lesson of work efficiency, here. They are such a prize possesion to me now that I can't bear to waste any speck of nut meat. How am I ever going to be able to happily to dump handfuls of them into a recipe? It's a bit unfair for any recipe to have to be worth all that. Except that cracking nuts is a perversely satisfying task, like what knitting must seem like (not that I'd know, haven't ever really tried knitting much). The monotony and detail work is  . . . almost meditative. So, I'll be meditating away on this lovely Friday night cracking and picking away at my hickory nuts.  

Open Season

Legal disclaimer: The following blog post is for entertainment purposes only. If I mistakenly provide you with inaccurate information that gets you ticketed or arrested, saying, “But I read it on Woods To Food,” will serve as a very weak legal defense before any of Missouri’s fine county judiciaries. I’ve been trying to fit in some archery practice, when I was struck with a shocking news flash: firearms season is here! The bow would have to wait.
I’m talking turkey. This is old news to any real turkey hunter, but I was still assuming the dates were about the same as they were back in the day – a couple of weeks long, starting in mid-October. But I checked the dates, and found that turkey season is actually the entire month of October, 1 – 31.
Now starkly aware of how grossly uninformed I am, I started looking over my other information on the deer and turkey season that my wife had brought home for me. Egads! There was a firearms deer season that opens this weekend, right at my backdoor. It’s an anterlerless only urban deer season, occurring in a few select urban areas of Missouri, southern Boone County being one of them.
But wait! Overlapping turkey and deer firearm seasons? Did this mean I could arm myself with two guns and hunt both simultaneously? Several years ago, when I first got into hand-gunning, I considered wearing a large caliber handgun in addition to carrying my rifle, and I would use the handgun for close deer, and the rifle for one that is far away. But when I consulted the manual, I found that carrying two firearms for hunting was prohibited.
But apparently now this rule has been relaxed, and there is no longer a prohibition on carrying two firearms. Should I also carrying my bow, in case I saw a buck? No, carrying a firearm while bow hunting is still prohibited, even when the seasons overlap as they do this weekend. I’d need to stick to my guns, and give the bucks a break.
If I rode my motorcycle to the go hunting with two guns, I would look somewhat like Randall “Tex” Cobb in his role as the bounty hunter in Raising Arizona, albeit I’m five inches shorter and about 70 pounds lighter. I should probably go with the truck. Plus it would be really hard to haul a deer on the Harley, although I’m sure it’s been done.
To prepare for the turkey side of things, I visited the shooting range to pattern my shotgun. It was warm, I was wearing a t-shirt, and sitting down, drawing a fine bead when I shot. Either I’ve gotten soft, or I’ve just forgotten what the recoil is like from a my little pump 12 gauge when you shot long brass, 3 inch magnum shells through it. In a word: punishing. Bring on the cooler weather, and let me put another layer or two of fabric between this butt stock and my shoulder.
While at the range, we met a very nice hand gunner, who let Ann and I each fire a clip full of 9 mm through his Czech pistol. He also offered to let us fire his other guns, which included a really nice stainless steel Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 magnum. But we needed to stick to business, and it was almost dinner time. We did, however, give Henry and Oliver an chance to fire several rounds through Henry’s .22 lever action Henry Golden Boy rifle.
Several rounds and an achy shoulder later, I felt I had achieved adequate data to take the field with my shotgun after a turkey. My deer rifle is ready to go, although a little more practice would never hurt. Bring on the weekend.

Trout and Sprout Salad, page 108

For lunch today I used leftover trout to try the trout and sprout salad and am happy to say that I can offer the recipe on this one because MDC has it published, along with about three other recipes from the Cooking Wild in Missouri book, on their web site. Actually this is one of the loosest recipes in the book in that it doesn't call for exact amouts of this and that. For a salad, that's fine by me. It's nice to have some exact recipes and some that you can be flexible with. Anyhow, used the leftovers for my own personal trout salad at work today. I made it in a bento box. Heard of those? It's a Japanese lunchbox. The premise is that you deserve a nice break in the middle of your work day so why not give yourself a healthy lunch in a nice lunch box? It's a great feeling knowing you are caring for yourself and your body. And, that's the feeling I had with the trout salad today. It was a real treat and felt like a superb lunch. It was 1. quick to make 2. portable 3. pretty 4. healthy 5. unusual 6. used leftovers 8. satiating and  7. inexpensive. Really, what more could you possibly ask for in a lunch? Fantastic. I used the left over sauce from the Korean venison dish for the dressing 'cause I still had some leftover.

Oh, and on another note Inside Columbia magazine called for a story on our blog. The article should come out in November's issue.
Oh, blast it. I took photos of the  trout salad in a bento box but the bleeping camera didn't have a memory card in it and we don't have a cord for that camera. No photo to post for now. My IT man/husband will work on it tomorrow. 

Adendum from husband: There was no way to get the photos off the camera without a cord. I had to order the cord - from China. It finally came, so here are the trout salad photos.

From Cooking Wild in Missouri:
Trout and Sprout Salad

Ingredients

• Leftover grilled or baked trout, broken into bite-sized pieces
• Fresh spinach
• Mixed lettuces
• Bean sprouts
• Cilantro
• Green onion
• Garlic tops (the green tops of fresh garlic) or freshly minced garlic
• Soy sauce
• Sesame oil
• Rice wine vinegar

Instructions:

I tossed the trout together with all the vegetables, a little soy, toasted sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. It was perfect! You also could add such things as peanuts, mung-bean threads and avocado. Fresh orange sections, carrots, red peppers or cucumbers come to mind, as well.

Comments

I've had several people tell me they tried to post comments on the blog, but it didn't work. I think I've determined that the blog was set that you had to enter a captcha in order to post, but a lot of people's browsers security was set in such a way that prevented the captcha from popping up. I changed the setting this morning, so now anyone should be able to post, with or without an account. I tested this and it seems to work.

Trout with toasted-almond orange sauce, page 96

Fred here. Ann's doing yoga, so I'll take a stab at reviewing tonight's recipe, flaunting my credentials as an experienced eater.
It was good. Real good. Check back later this week for more recipe reviews.

OK, for the longer version, maybe I should start with a legal disclaimer and a confession. First of all, no wild trout were harmed in the making of this recipe.

But before you delete our blog from your favorites, hear me out. The trout we used were Missouri trout (born and raised, or hatched and raised, rather). And they were local, purchased from the dear trout sales lady at the Columbia farmer's market. These were no factory fish.

Ann made this recipe to the T, complete with the serving suggestions of garlic mashed potatoes (from our aforementioned potato patch of course) and lightly cooked fresh spinach. I have to hand it to her, she's not only a great cook, she's very fast. She didn't start on this until after 5 p.m., were were eating just after 6 p.m., and during that hour she also picked Oliver up from piano lessons (only a few doors down the street, but still amazing).

The trout were cooked in the oven, pretty much the same way we always cook trout. The buttery orange sauce was fantastic, and was different than any I've had before. The pomengranate seeds, toasted almonds and chopped parsley complimented the fish perfectly. We opted not to garnish with prosciutto, primarily because we're cheap and prosciutto is not, but also because the trout is so mouthwatering that upstaging it with prosciutto seemed a waste. Save it for a chicken breast.

So I'd give this one yet another gold star. There are plenty more trout recipes, so maybe later I'll be able to share so harrowing tales of attempting to catch rather than purchase the main ingredient.

Venison Moussaka, page 28-29

Well, believe it or not I got my way! Turns out my sister Tracey had to work this afternoon leaving the cooking to me. Raid the fridge, kids! And, grab the venison from the freezer while you're at it.

We came back from the zoo at 4:00 and decided to make venison moussaka. Fred starting cooking while my brother-in-law and I ran to the store for further ingredients. There's a meat sauce to make, a white sauce, eggplant to broil, veggies to saute, layer them together with cheese and bread crumbs and into the oven it goes. Man, it's almost 8 p.m. now and we're all looking forward to this dinner.

O.K. I'm back from the feast. Wow. That was satisfying. What a great recipe. Tracey describes the dish as gentle, a greek version of comfort food, deeply nourishing . . . and a bit time consuming. This is a company dish. Also, Tracey prefers venson that is cooked by dry methods rather than cooked wet, so she was pleasantly surprised. 
Really, I wouldn't look any further for a moussaka recipe. Venison or not, this is the one. And, Fred thought it would make a great dish to serve someone who hadn't had venison before.
What a great day it's been. A trip to the zoo on a warm fall day, kids playing with their cousins, some good finds at a garage  sale (I got to spill it, I got an antique umbrella and a sculpture of an ibis)  and time with my sister. And to finish up the day, making a successful dinner from our Woods to Food project.  'Dats what I call a good Saturday. 

Catfish asparagus bisque, page 95

Here's a nice comfort food for any day of the week. This bisque is made with a broth of potatoes (from our potato patch), chicken broth, onion, garlic and asparagus, with lemon and catfish added after the rest is pureed. Fred thought the soup comforting, like something you'd want if your tummy was a bit off or if you had a cold.
I made a booboo cooking the soup that seemed stupid afterwards. Somehow I was looking at the cooking times of "add potatoes, cook 12 minutes, then add asparagus, cook 12 minutes more" (paraphrasing here) and thought I could cut that out and go straight to pureeing, then add the catfish and finish up the cooking time. Well, I tasted the soup once the catfish was done and . . . it tasted and had the texture of pureed raw potato. Oops. No harm done, though. I don't think the catfish was harmed by cooking longer.
The next day for lunch I topped the reheated soup with a lot of chunks of cold tomatoes from our garden. I liked it. It's the kind of lunch you enjoy and makes you feel strong and full of veggies after.
We're at my sister's house this weekend and I'm itching to cook from the Cooking Wild book. What to do. What to do. I know she's got venison in the freezer and I'm out. Hmmm. We looked through the book this morning but the recipes we have remaining to make don't blend with what she had in mind for dinner. Moreover, I really like my sister's cooking and who wants to cook when their sister will cook for them!