Day 9: Stir fry madness

Weight: 200

Here in the picture was my culinary labor after work: at the top is our cider, beginning to bubble as the yeast starts to do it's work. There is a water valve at top to keep out foreign bacteria. In the middle is my stir fry: chanterelle mushrooms (the best part), cucumber (I stupidly thought--in the dark--I had pulled a zucchini out of the garden), garden garlic (I diced up the green top without researching whether that was okay but it tasted good), green tomatoes, a small jalapeno, turmeric, large dandelion leaves, chocolate mint, lemon mint, salt, pepper, sage (ground and in the cabinet) and a touch of olive oil. At the bottom is a loaf of a superb rye bread I tasted (just a bite)--but since it was too early for me to start eating bread again I will save it for a while. I made it because I've found myself unable to prepare ahead last week. Tasting it, I realized it would be hard to resist for a few days, but it it is pretty hard on the outside, so it should stay well at its core and will come in handy in a pinch. This rye flour was from a health food store in Colorado and it probably was too old but I don't see any evidence of a problem.

Chanterelles, called Girolle in and in Pfifferling in German they are in my top five list of discovered foods. They taste superb in a stir fry like this, and I will gather them whenever I see them for the rest of my life. Warning: they are pretty easy to spot but look a bit like a similar mushroom I also found nearby with classic gills and were inedible. These have "false gills" and if you can tell the difference you are pretty safe. They are listed as "expert" in one of my identification books, but I read pretty closely and had a person say they were in the area. If on the off chance I took something bad (don't worry) I will go to the grave raving about the taste of what I fried up. I should be able to find far more mushrooms this week after a rainy night or two. Today was blue with only a few clouds in the sky.

This is all I had today, except for a black coffee (just dang tired this morning--sorry for the cheat) and several blackberries throughout the day.