Penne with pheasant in morel cream sauce, page 74

Pheasant (from Fred and his dad's hunting trip). Check

Dehydrated morels (from our hero in St. Louis). Check

We can finally make this recipe. I've been holding on to the last of our pheasant for some time until morels shot up to make this dish.

This is the sort of meal that the Internet still does not do service to. Yes, I can describe it. Yes, I can take pictures. But, really I'm looking for a scratch and sniff feature. Can anybody's smart phone do that yet? Got a scratch and sniff app? Because the aromas of this dish were backflipping good and without giving you a sample of that I don't think I can do the recipe justice.

The pheasant is boiled for a couple hours until it's able to come off the bones, the mushrooms are rehydrated, and a sauce is made with the pheasant broth, aeromatic/earthy broth from soaking the morels and cream. Oh, and butter and shallots. I'm telling you it's a sorry thing you can't smell how good this dish made the kitchen smell.

One small pheasant and a handful of morels really makes an outstanding dish with this recipe and otherwise may not be enough to do much with. Certainly if you'd fried the pheasant and morels, which is how they are mostly eaten, you would have needed more bird and fungus to feel satisfied.

And, good it was to eat, too. Henry is crazy about the morels and got really excited about dinner. Oliver said he didn't want to eat any pheasant (because it's hard for him to think of eating wild animals) but then asked for extra "chicken" in his pasta. Sure, Oliver. Fred had several helpings and seemed to really enjoy coming home to such a nice dinner. It was a busy night for us which usually means snackier type dinners.

It's nice to light up your family's face and sometimes dinner does just that. And, it helps to have these great wild ingredients and a fun recipe book to lead the way.