The Fungus Among Us (about $4, about 40 minutes including baking time)

Mushrooms are not a fungus. They're flowers. The fungus is underground, and the mushroom is its...

Sigh.

Well, that doesn't make them any more palatable in theory, does it? I mean, is it better to think you're eating a fungus (images flash by: someone's nasty fungal toenail; the gunk in the the crevices between tiles in the shower; the largest living organism on earth, which is now taking over an entire Northwestern state -- should I even go on?)?

Or a penis/uterus (new set of images [and here I avoid the more obvious]: the German cannibal, who started with his consensual victim's you-know-what [which they ate together and pronounced kind of tough] ; Rocky Mountain Oysters (a festival? REALLY?); folks who eat human placenta...really, I should probably stop)?

I know. It's a food blog. This is crazy talk for a food blog.

And yet.

Don't you wonder who first looked at this thing-- grey, a little damp, pushing up out of the dank ground -- looked at it and said, "Effin' YUM! I want me some of that!" -- Because I'm thinking that person was starving OR had already eaten some funny mushrooms. I'm also thinking: probably he died, since so many mushrooms can kill you, the nasty buggers.

So I'm also thinking that the person(s) watching him took notes, sent another idiot out there to try another kind, who fell dead, and so forth until folks found the ones that are really tasty. Because, really good mushrooms are REALLY good.

Like these.

What I have here are stuffed mushroom caps. I use button mushrooms because I can find them readily at the grocery store, but any cap with a sufficiently rounded aspect will do. Just so you can get a hole where the stem is -- and yes, I know -- how to avoid double entendres when you start the way I did, I don't know.

What you need:

About a pound of good-sized mushrooms or just the caps

1/2 c finely chopped walnuts

1/2 c plain bread crumbs

1 1/2 TBSP dried dill

4 oz finely crumbled feta

4 TBSP milk

pepper

2 TBSP olive oil

Oven to 375. Lightly grease a large flat pan. I use a lasagna pan for this.

Mix nuts, bread crumbs, dill, feta and milk. The resulting stuffing will be loose and crumbly. This is right. Don't worry.

Wipe the mushrooms off. Me, I wash them, in violation of all that's sacred about mushroom cleaning, I understand. Alas. But then, I eat a lot less dirt this way.

If the mushrooms still have stems, wiggle them back and forth with your fingers. They should pop right out. Save these in the fridge to chop up in your next soup.

Wash your hands.

With your fingers, lightly press the filling into the cavities of each mushroom. You want enough pressure to compact the stuffing, but not so much that you break the mushroom in half. Experiment. If you break the mushrooms, it's okay: just set the pieces next to each other in the pan and cook them with the rest. They'll look broken but still taste just fine.

You want to make a little heap of stuffing on top of each mushroom. It'll stay together, I promise.

Place each mushroom in the lightly greased pan. They can touch each other if they need to. If not, not. You can ask them about this and explain good and bad touch if you think that's good parenting. If you do, you might consider explaining about death, since -- well, they're headed into the oven, and ultimately into the hydrochloric acid of your gut (okay, I love this site), so I think it's probably fair to say something while you're talking to the mushrooms anyway.

When you've stuffed all the mushrooms -- and I've never done this without having stuffing left over, which freezes just fine -- drizzle them with the olive oil. Use less if you'd like.

Bake the whole thing for about 20 minutes, uncovered. The mushrooms will darken and the stuffing will brown just a little bit. When they're soft enough for your taste, remove from the oven and, waiting so you don't burn your mouth, consume.

There you go.

Kale and Rice (under $10; 45 mins)

[Chuck says for my student followers especially, I should list cost and time to prepare. I'll start doing this in the title, but so that no one is confused, I preface this with this preface. The feta and pine nuts are the most expensive part of this: prepared this way, you'll spend probably six or seven dollars on the whole thing, which will feed at least four people all the way full (or one Chuck and one Emily and one lunch). If you buy the kale cut and cleaned, the rice takes the longest to prepare at 40 minutes. Assembly is 3 minutes.]

One of my colleagues felt so out of place in a small town in the South ("Butt freak!" "Film Buff!" -- nothing like some Canadians to put the South in perspective) -- with its culture of tradition-uber-alles and unhealthy ideas about food, and backwoods backassward politics. When she got the chance to go back west, she went; she now lives where she and her dog and her husband can walk for hours in all directions, or bike, and never have to contend with religious nuts, uncaring writer/students, fried Twinkies on a stick.

She introduced me to our local CSA (community supported agriculture), which I've dropped given its sheer cost and its erratic production and distribution. But while I was in the co-op, the only one around here by the way, I ended up one day in fall with a shitload of something green and leafy. The tag said "kale" (wow! and healthy, too). I'd never heard of it. Really. Seriously. Never heard of it. So I sent an email or something, maybe made some phone calls: "I have this stuff called 'kale.' What the hell do I do with it?"

I didn't check the internet. I still don't trust it easily for recipes. Ironic, that.

My colleague responded. She told me she had the best, easiest, tastiest preparation for kale ever. Her friend in California told her about it. 

We tried it. We discovered that kale is in fact vegetable crack (best drug website there is). One puff and you will sell your children for it.

The trick to this is to eat kale in season, which for here, is right now. I have 30 kale plants in my garden almost ready to harvest. I say almost. They're biggish, and we just had a frost, but I want to wait just a little more; except I don't, and so I bought a bag of kale and made this last night.

Also, this tells me how much you'll need, too, so -- that's good, right?

Anyway, this is fall-winter-early spring ONLY.

What you'll need:

about a pound of washed, trimmed, and coarsely chopped kale. Color is immaterial.

about 6 cups cooked rice (brown is better)

a standard block of feta cheese, crumbled (I think this is 4 oz) -- sometimes I use a little less

1/4-1/2 cup pine nuts

soy sauce, crushed garlic, hot peppers, olive oil

In a lightly oiled pan, toast the pine nuts over medium heat. Be careful: they burn FAST. Keep them moving in the pan until about half of them are golden brown. Take the pan off the heat and let them sit while you fix the rest.

In a very large stockpot with a lid, put about 2 TBSP olive oil and heat until you can smell it. Add about a tsp of crushed garlic, and enough hot pepper stuff to affect your sinuses. Stir for just a minute. Dump in the kale and keep moving it against the bottom until it's half-reduced in size. Turn off the heat and cover to let the kale steam. Stir once or twice. When it's done, it'll release a little water and be about a quarter the volume of the original kale.

Add three medium splashes of soy sauce. Stir.

In a deep bowl, layer the rice, then the kale and its juices, then the pine nuts, then the feta. Often I bake this a little in a 350 oven just to toast some of the edges of the kale and soften the cheese, but that's not strictly necessary. It's ready to go once the layers are done.

My mother, who thinks "vegetarian food" means "nasty shit poor people who can't afford steak eat" downed three bowls of this in a single sitting. It's good stuff.

There you go.