I've got a bottle full of sunshine

To my great surprise I have found myself on the saddle of a mountain bike again after many years. Prior to 2010 mountain biking was a big thing in our lives and I would cycle with the kids 2 or 3 times a week. Then my back seized and that was a closed chapter in our lives.

My youngest son has been mucking around at the local jump track over the last year and was keen to get cycling again but with the devastating fire that burned through most of our mountain in March this year, all cycling tracks on the mountain were closed to allow the ecosystem to rehabilitate.

Avid mountain bikers are now carving out other little tracks around the greenbelts in Constantia, Tokai and surrounds which meant that we could give it a try again. So for the last few weeks Superman, my son and I have been out riding on a Sunday morning, about 13 - 16kms and its been great. The back so far ok :)

The foodie in me cannot help but notice the food around me in the greenbelt as I ride. Having dabbled in foraging in the past I am always interested to see what can be collected around this urban area.

There are lots of dandelions for salads or infusing into honey. Of course the bramble berries are all over the place, although coming to an end now. There are nasturtiums to eat and even a huge cactus with lots of prickly pears to pick.



The squirrels may not share, but there are loads of pinecones for pine nuts - if you are willing to do the hardwork of getting them out of the cone.

And then there is this find...Eldertrees. Lots of elder trees. I have been eyeing them out now for a few weeks waiting for the flowers to be in full bloom so that I can harvest some for cordial. John Seymour recommends harvesting on a hot day - I suppose it makes the flowers scent more pungent??

And today was the day!

So we came home with our treasure today and I followed this recipe for elderflower cordial....Soon my trees will be big enough for me to harvest our own.

Foraged treasure

In a few weeks I will check the trees again on the greenbelt to see if I can harvest some elder berries to infuse into vinegar or syrup.

One of the two bottles of sunshine!

Mushrooming...a family tradition perhaps?

Leaving one sleepyhead to snooze, seeing another off on a instagramming trip around Cape Town I hauled Superman and the youngest two kiddies off to Tokai forest to collect the annual treat of Pine Rings. It's the first time Gavin has joined us, he is always skeptical about eating from the wild. The first time (6yrs ago) I served pine rings, he could not handle the thought and his body rejected the mushrooms...YKWIM?

Last year he ate them in a delicious wild mushroom risotto, which we will be making tonight again. This is real comfort food, warm, creamy and hugely satisfying and will probably mark the end of our carbohydrate spree we have been on recently. The chicken stock is cooking away on the stove and filling the house with rich fragrant aromas hinting at the meal to come tonight.

Come for a photographic walk with us while we go mushroom picking...

So much rain has made rivulets through the forest

Gorgeous green

We have to cross this...

The way across?

Little waterfalls all over the place

Arrived in the plantation

Superman's cache

Gorgeous freshly grown (no green)

And now to get back over

Sarah and I waded through the icy stream barefoot

Bounty

Wild mushrooms - a seasonal habit

Escaping the chaos at home I took a very indulgent friend with me to go and collect some wild mushrooms in the Tokai Aboretum. It is always best to go 2 - 3 days after rain, anything longer than that and they get mushy and mouldy quite quickly.

The river is always a delight in this season and crossing it is always a game of whose more agile than you! The kids always make it first :)

The kids spread out in the top plantation to look for the right ones after I had shown them what to look for.

Treasure under the pine needles

I made a simple mushrooms on toast for breakfast buy frying them in butter, garlic, thyme and then adding a cup of white wine. I put this on toast and add a good helping of crumbled feta...

 YUM YUM YUM

Identifying pine rings and wild mushroom risotto

Yesterday I went to learn more about mushrooms with a group of families and a fungus fundi. It was a wonderful learning time. I have been collecting pine ring mushrooms in the forest for a few years now and enjoying them in various ways.

The first time I served some 4 years ago Superman was not at all impressed! It was drummed into him as a kid that your do not eat wild mushrooms so when the dish was placed before him a rather unpleasant reflex action took place. He has gotten used to me eating them, and as he too loves mushies, this year he decided to try again.

Pine rings collected yesterday.

One of the problems that we have as foragers is identifying whether a pine ring is fresh enough to eat...let me share with you how to do this first. You will find them in dense pine leaf litter. Look carefully, they are sometimes just a little mound and if you move the needles off you will see the mushroom. The best months are May and June. They pop through about 2 days after rain.

Fresh pinering - notice the concentric circles like a tree trunk and the pale orange color.

Older pinering with the greeny color. I don't eat them when they get to this stage.

Stem of fresh pinerine - notice the little holes in the stem.

Old pinering stem - greening and no holes

This I learnt yesterday - the color test. Cut through the stem just above ground level and print it on your hand. 

 If the mushroom is indeed a pine ring then it will bleed orange. The fresher it is the clearer the circle on your hand.

Another rule about foraging mushrooms, they are best eaten the day they are picked and do not keep long. The tendency of people, when something is "free" is to take as much as they can find. This is really not necessary, take only what you can eat in one day. It is a treat, something special, not something to feast on. You need 1 palm sized (or the equivalent of) per person to add something special to the meal.

Fungi play a huge part in the forest by breaking down leaf litter, tree trunks and more. When you find a mushroom that is not edible, no need to kick it over and break it up, leave it to do it's work.

Last point about pine rings, your urine the next day is an orangey-brown color...not a problem...you are fine :-)

This is Jamie Oliver's recipe for wild mushroom risotto from his Jamie At Home cookbook.

Brown 2 stalks of celery and one onion in some olive oil and butter

Add 400g of risotto rice and stire to cover. Add 1 cup of white wine. Stir until absorbed. Then add, ladle by ladle, 1.5l chicken stock. Add a teaspoon of salt and 1 punnet mixed wild mushrooms (woolies has a special at the moment on Shitake/Oyster mushies.) Sit well with each addition.

Meanwhile dry fry your foraged mushrooms until soft

When cooked squeeze over the juice of 1 lemon, and add picked leaves of handful of parsely and thyme. Mix.

Finish the risotto with 25g cubed butter and 250ml grated parmesan. Mix in and allow to sit for 5minutes

Serve the risotto placing a heaped spoon of wild mushrooms on top.

This risotto is so moreish, comforting and indulgent. Thank goodnes we can only forage pine rings for a few months every year.

PS Superman had no negative reactions this time and thoroughly enjoyed the meal. Next time I hope he will come foraging with us.

Foraging for fungi with friends.

Today a few families got together to go foraging for fungi with a Fungi Specialist from SANBI - Dr N Allsopp. She was a treasure trove of information and clearly her passion for the forest and its diversity rubbed off on us. I have foraged for about 4 years in the forest for Pine Rings but have always wanted to know more about what else grows here and if there is anything else we can eat.

Permanent inhabitants to welcome us

Off we go

Nope, not baboon dropping, rather a fungus that lives on the roots of the Eucalyptus Tree

Gorgeous shelf fungi

This one is used for dying wool and material

This one when open smells like rotten meat

Edible, I tried, but very peppery and unpleasant

A luminous bead like fungi on a tree

Crossing the Princess Kasteel River to my hunting ground

The treasure I came for - Pine Rings

A nice number of Pine Rings to go with dinner tonight.

Tomorrow I will show you how to determine that it is a Pine Ring and fresh enough to eat with the delicious recipe we used tonight. It was so good to be out in the cold winter air with some special friends enjoying this time of learning.

Aaah...holidays!

After a week of no school I am beginning to feel like some sanity is returning. We have not had a real away holiday for about 3 years and miss our long annual camping trips. But as Superman says:"No work, no pay!" Being self employed is like that, I suppose.

The other night Superman and a friend, who is also self employed, came up with an idea to be holiday makers in our own town. Cape Town is one of the premier holiday making destinations in the world. We really have everything here from beautiful beaches to majestic mountains, fauna and flora, shopping and experiences.

Last night we had a picnic at the gorgeous dam at the top of our mountain...the water is safe to swim in and deliciously cool on such hot summer days. The kids love to catch and release the fish that come to eat bread out of your hands. The grown ups like to bob about in the water...we make the little ones stay on boogie boards for safety.

This morning at 8 we headed down to the beach to pull white mussel from the sand. After a while your hands and feet get used to the icy water as this ocean is on the side of Cape Town where the cold Benguela current runs up from the south.

The pickings were slim and hard going...so we turned our attention to the black mussel on the rock rather. I am not fussy when it comes to seafood, I love it all. White mussell is delicious when cleaned fried in a light batter and eaten as is with lemon juice, made into a white wine and cream sauce and served on rice or made into a soup. Black mussel is great in garlic, cream and white wine too.

They take a couple of hours to clean themselves left in a bucket of sea water and then you steam them before cooking in your sauce. Besides for these sea creatures there was a lot of other beauty there.





Please note: You need a fishing permit to remove any seafood from the oceans.

Aaah...holidays...I wonder what Superman will think of next?