Winter. With the ice and snow and finger-numbing temperatures, it hardly seems the ideal time for bringing delicious foods in from the garden. There are a few late-season pleasures to be had, however. We had frost-sweetened Brussels sprouts around1 Thanksgiving, and harvested some lovely cabbages from beneath two inches of ice and snow.
Braised with butter, chicken stock, and caraway seeds, they're excellent.
Last weekend, we even took the opportunity to dig carrots and parsnips before the ground turned too cold to work. Here you can see the haul - with parsnips beneath - and a fascinated dog.
The remaining parsnips will overwinter outdoors, to be dug come spring. With a little luck.
I didn't have the best year for mushroom hunting, especially since we didn't get the flush of field mushrooms that appeared in 2008. With too much work to do, escaping to the woods just hasn't been in the cards. Trips to the dog park do happen with some regularity, and it was there that I stumbled across these:
Winter mushrooms, Flammulina velutipes, are around these days. There isn't much to them, with their mild flavor and somewhat slippery texture, but free, wild, edible fungus is still exciting.
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1Not for. Thanksgiving, after all, is a holiday for the same old boring foods a family has every year. Is it possible to make a holiday that embraces food so lackluster in the dinner department? Yes. Yes it is.
