Mmmmmm Morels

Hunting for morel mushrooms is a time-honored forager's pleasure.  Wet woods and rain followed by hot temps usually bring these tasty fungi up and out. Lately, weather patterns have been disrupted and so the predictability in the appearance of these early May treats is hard to pin down. 

One is simply forced to head out to the woods and enjoy the spring flora and fauna day after day...how we suffer.

Our old hunting grounds of ten and twenty years ago are pretty well consumed by the spread of garlic mustard. So we have tramped alot over the past few years looking for just the right new spot. When we don't find morels, a kind neighbor shares or, if worse comes to worst, a stop at farmer's market to buy a few at a dear price is still fine with us. We crave the season's fruits and fungi!  This year, we supported a local farm family who found bushels of morels and paid the price for some amazingly big yellow beauties.

We usually get enough to put in some scrambled eggs or to saute lightly and put on toast.  Rarely, we still have some hoarded ramps and then we make our absolute favorite spring treat - ramp and morel pizza!

We saute the morels and ramps lightly. If we're lucky, we still have a chunk of garlic scape pesto (those lovely curlique greens that grow on your garlic as it strives to flower) saved in the freezer to spread over the pizza dough to create the foundation for the pizza. 

Garlic Scape and Almond Pesto
Blend together into a fine pesto paste.

• 10 garlic scapes, chopped fine
• 1/3-1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup slivered almonds, lightly toasted if you like
• sea salt to taste
• up to 1/2 cup olive oil

We add goat cheese and mozzarella, perhaps some slices of roasted fresh asparagus, a little Italian sausage on Lloyd's homemade dough and pop it on the grill.  The tastes are unique and sublime. Spring is encompassed!

And if we don't happen upon more morels this year in our hunt, we'll be back tramping again next spring. The woods invite us to enjoy them no matter what the result of our quest (I will say we found one lone stalk of tasty wild asparagus on our latest morel tramp so all is not lost in the tasty treats department). And that makes it all the more special!