It was a pretty good Weekend in the woods

[JP Z]

Found another pair of Umbellatus.  And a nice batch of Lobsters.  Of course I can't seem to find any trumpets to save my life.

[Herky2002]

Nice.  Where were you hunting?

I'm going to try to get out to a couple of spots in the north Metro tonight, to see if the recent rains got anything popping.

[JP Z]

I hunt around Brainerd on some private land we have.  I need some heat now after all this rain to kick the Chants back up.

[icehole10]

I am getting the itch to get back out in the woods, I managed to snag a surplus bear tag last week, so I will be doing plenty of exploring here in the next couple of weeks. I have a wedding this weekend, and then ill be up at the cabin pretty much every weekend after that till November!!

[JP Z]

Yeah, now is the time.........sort of.  Strange the lack of Chants I'm finding, all are just buttons still.  Not the large bloomers.  The deer flies are bad enough to carry you away......piece by itchy piece mind you.

[B-man715]

Nice find JPZ:)

 

I got out during a break in the rain Sunday and only found enough chants to fill a ball cap worth. Still haven't found a lobster, but hope to soon.

[pushbutton]

Don't feel bad about the trumpets JP, never found one either.....or any of those umbellatuses you pick up every year. From a distance always think one of the whiter hens might be....but nope.

 

Have not been shrooming much lately,  but this post got me out last night and did find some chants and more rotten lobsters. Man those chants are tastey. Started to see a few bigger ones and some starting dry up. Might go back and  pick a bunch and try that pickling thing........

[JP Z]

I have the wine pickled ones in the fridge......it's okay.  I want to try sauteeing them after I've had them pickled in the wine to get the flavor. 

If you haven't Tried the Chanterelles in Bacon Cream sauce I HIGHLY recommend it.  Was phenomenal over new potatoes.

Chanterelle Bacon Cream sauce

You will need:

• 250 gr chanterelle mushrooms
• 100 gr smoked bacon
• 1 medium sized onion
• 150 gr sour cream
• hand of fresh dill, chopped
• salt & pepper

Instructions:

The ingredients above suffice for a dinner for two.

Cut the bacon in small cubes, thinly slice the onion, clean and cut the chanterelles in smaller pieces.

Put a large non-stick frying pan on medium heat and start with frying the bacon. You won’t need any frying oil or butter as the bacon provides plenty of fat by itself.

Fry the bacon for a few minutes, add the chopped onion and continue frying until it is transparent and slightly golden.

Add the chanterelles and continue frying for around 10 minutes. The mushrooms will produce quite a lot of liquid and it needs to evaporate.

Once most of the liquid is cooked out, stir in the sour cream. Cook for a few minutes and adjust the thickness of the sauce. If you would like it to be more runny, add some boiled water until you achieve the desired consistence.

Season with salt and pepper, add a generous hand of fresh dill.

 

Serve with new potatoes and lightly marinated pickles.

Ideas & variations:

If bacon is not your thing, you can make the classic vegetarian version: simply skip the meat and replace sour cream with whipping cream (or similar).

[Stick in Mud]

Things are downright frothy in the piney north woods.  Lots of good stuff to be had....chants and lobsters, predominantly, but enough pigs' ears and edible russulas to add spice and variety.  No trumpets that I can find up here, but I'll be back in the Cloud tomorrow to check out my trumpet spots before heading to Iowa for a wedding.  I'll check some dells and hollers down there to see what's up.  

[jerkin'm]

I haven't found any umbullaties or trumpets ever either....found a couple prime small chickens, a handful of hedgehogs, and about 20# of chants the last couple days.... The rain got things popping again nicely. 

[pikestabber]

I've been a morel picker since I was a kid, but I only really got into the big world of shrooms about 4 summers ago. I went from a guy second guessing what a chicken was to being comfortable picking about 10 or so varieties and I am learning each year (thanks in no small part to you folks on this thread). Each season my spots have grown, and I have grown more confident that every outing will produce something to eat if you put your time in. That said, I've never found "the mother lode" of anything really... Until this weekend. I went out with my gal and our young son on Saturday to a new road. It's actually my favorite grouse hunting road, but it's 40 minutes north of me so I'd never tried it for shrooms. 30 minutes in and I saw more lobsters than I had in the previous 4 years combined. I stopped counting after 50, but I would guess I found 75 without breaking a sweat. Only about 1 in 6 were good (missed it by THAT much!) but I netted four pounds which is great for me as Lobsters are my personal favorite. I also found a dozen nice chants which is about the most I've found where I tend to look.

Sunday was even better. In addition to some chokecherries, we also found a couple pounds of high bush cranberries which I've been curious about for a while. They were everywhere! Excited to try to make some jelly. But the best part was another "new" road, again, a road I frequent for grouse and also for it's blackberry output, and this time I had my nephew with. We found a few handfuls of blackberries to munch on and were headed out when he hollered to stop. He got out to investigate what he thought was a Chanterelle. Turned out to be a false one, but then his jaw dropped. "You HAVE to get over here!" What I found when I ran out to where he was were Chants as far as I could see! We picked 11 pounds in a matter of minutes. Now, I know that's not a monster load by many pickers standards, but it was a monster load for me, and I couldn't be happier. I was up until midnight processing everything last night, but if the season ended today I'd be set for winter, and I think the best is yet to come in the north woods! All this from a spot I would never have stopped at as it just didn't "look right." Turns out I have plenty to learn about Chanterelle habitat.

***Note, many of these were over the hill and required some serious trimming, and some were perfect, but in the end it was a lot of shrooms for the freezer! My Nephew was happy, that's for sure:
 

 

Edited August 17, 2015 by pikestabber

[pushbutton]

Great report and cool that the cous kiddo found em. He will probably be hooked now as well, and also really cool you got jrstabber out there with you already . Keep a mental note where that spot is. Maybe not always those numbers, but a good chance they will be back year after year.

[icehole10]

You guys are killing me. Going north this weekend, and hopefully will have some sort of report. I am glad to see that you are still finding chants.