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Hi! It’s been a little while since I’ve shared any blog or personal updates on here or my Instagram account @homesteadinghuntress. If you’re interested in why that is, keep reading “Blog updates” and “Personal news“.
If you’re not interested, click on “Summertime chanterelle hunting” for photos of my recent mushroom hunt.
Blog Updates
I’ve been quietly making big updates and upgrades to the Homesteading Huntress blog. Changes to articles and guides include:
- Recipe moved to top of page so it’s easy to see (no endless scrolling). Example: This eggplant and venison recipe is easier to read.
- “Jump to Recipe” link is easier to see. It’s right under the featured photo at the top of recipe posts.
- Quick navigation at the beginning of an article. Quick nav links make is easier to find the info you’re looking for. Example: Go to each section fast in the Wild Beach Pea Foraging Guide.
- New content added to in-depth foraging and fermenting guides. Example: New mycology resources, new mushroom identification guides and added foraging tips in this Guide to Start Mushroom Foraging.
- Easy-to-find formulas to customize your ferments. Example: Ingredient-to-salt ratio formula in the Cabbage Kimchi Fermentation Guide & FAQ.
- Updated all government harvesting guides to meet 2020 guidelines. Example: Looking up limits and regulations when oyster harvesting.
- Cultural context adding to relevant articles. Example: Brief context on the history of kimchi in this omelette recipe.
- Edited, improved or removed content that did not meet quality standards.
You may notice that a handful of old posts are missing from the blog. There are some posts that I’m still working on upgrading, like my crab freediving guide. I’ll re-publish them when I believe they meet my standards for quality and comprehensiveness. My goal is to make this blog dependable, accurate, helpful, and a pleasure to read. I hope you like the changes.
Personal News
I’ve always wanted Homesteading Huntress to be a place where I can share my personal experiences, as well as in-depth wild food articles and info. Like many of you, wild food harvesting and fermenting is a passion that I enjoy in my free time. I never stopped hunting, harvesting, foraging, cooking and fermenting, but I didn’t post about it online for a while.
My career has been demanding, and it can be challenging to do similar-looking work in my professional life and my personal life. This blog is not monetized. I enjoy it, but I needed a break to focus on my actual job.
During my break, I went through some personal changes, including:
- Started trail running, which helps me get in the woods more often, and makes me a better hunter and harvester. Trail running makes me feel like a wild woodland creature.
- Planning a big wedding for me and W.’s family and friends, and then cancelling the wedding weeks beforehand due to the global pandemic
- Getting married to W. during the pandemic. We eloped in the shade of old growth trees in East Van. It was beautiful, strange and not what we expected. I’m grateful to have celebrated with a few close loved ones.
- Keeping busy with hunting, harvesting, foraging and fermenting. I never stopped, though I took a break from posting about it.
- Started a little outdoor garden in our apartment this summer. I’ve grown pounds of pickling cucumbers from seeds gifted from my father-in-law. I’ve also been growing tomatoes from two tomato plants that sprouted from my parents’ compost.
- Set up a fermentation chamber in our apartment, which W. used to propagate edible mushroom spores for his quarantine mushroom farm. I’m using it for fermentation right now.
And as everyone knows, “we’re in unprecedented times” (sigh) right now. The ambiguity of it all can be scary, but I feel lucky to be safe, healthy and secure as we navigate this together.
I’ll do my best to keep writing regularly on the blog. I enjoy writing posts and sharing info for other curious hobbyists. It helps me feel connected to a community that’s still relatively niche. Please be patient with me and the demands of real life.
It’s always nice to chat with you all in post comments and on my Instagram @homesteadinghuntress. Please feel free to comment and chat in my social and blog posts. I love hearing from you all.
Summertime Chanterelle Hunting Adventure
Here are the yellow chanterelles W. and I harvested a few weeks ago. They’re cleaned, prepped and ready for storage in a paper bag in the fridge. We shared this harvest fresh with our families and ate the rest in dinners throughout the week.
I’m excited to share my latest mushroom harvesting adventure and its edible results with you.
Early Season Harvesting Adventure
Yellow chanterelles are fruiting unusually early this fall in BC this year. I’ve actually seen yellow chanterelles on-and-off all summer. I always assume chanterelles will emerge in mid-to-late fall, not August and early September. Technically, early September is still summer, so it’s strange to have a summertime chanterelle harvest.
I understand that mushrooms will fruit based on many factors, not limited to humidity, altitude, temperature fluctuations and environment. But I can’t help but associate specific species with the seasons, so harvesting this many choice edibles has been a nice surprise during this weird time.
Yellow chanterelles are my favourite edible mushroom to harvest. Each one is so unique. I think they look like art nouveau beauties in the ground. I never get tired of finding chanterelles because each mushroom feels like a treasure, a prize waiting for me to carefully extract from the duff.
Chanterelles are a luxury to enjoy too, even though they’re free to harvest (if you have the privilege of knowledge, time and access). W. and I harvested around 15L of chanterelles on an impulsive walk through a chanterelle spot I found a few years ago.
Read more: How to Find a Mushroom Spot & Start Mushroom Hunting
It was so nice to walk through the woods with W. on a warm early September day. And when I spotted the first chanterelle, I laughed because I was so excited. W. and I can be a little competitive when it comes to mushroom foraging, too, and I admit I was pleased as heck to be first to harvest a chanterelle this year (he usually wins).
Cooking and Sharing Our Harvested Chanterelles
I prepared 1/3 of the batch in a chanterelle gravy served with steak in an outdoor dinner with W.’s family. I sautéed chanterelles onions and garlic in butter and added flour, forming a messy roux. I added white wine and cream, and then infused it with homegrown thyme and chives, and seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. It was a rich-tasting treat and everyone enjoyed the meal.
I gave another 1/3 of the chanterelles to my parents and my brother’s family. I cooked the remaining chanterelles in dinners during the week for me and W. Chanterelles aren’t as good when they’re dehydrated and rehydrated later. I’ve tried, but I’ve never been happy with their texture and flavour after dehydrating them. It’s best to share and feast on your fresh chanterelles with your loved ones (in a safe, socially distant way).
This post was published on September 21, 2020.
