For the Love of Morel

What an exciting week I had to get Complete Health and Inspiration a place where you can be secured and protected while you visit. I’m also thrilled to let you know that we’ve set up a store for our first two products for you to try. There are still some minor items that I need to straighten out and I’d like to be ready when we finally open our doors for shoppers. Meantime I want to spend my thoughts away from all the technical issues of setting up a web page. I would like to share with you our adventure with morel hunting this month.

Towards the end of April and early parts of May is morel mushroom season up where we live. These mushrooms usually show up when the temperature warms up outside after days of rain. The first week of May was just the right weather for it so my kids and I went out for the hunt. Everyone was excited to put on their hats and grab small native baskets with the hope of filling them up with morels.

You can’t believe what people do just to find morels. These mushrooms are very seasonal and wither right away when the temperature starts to get more than 70 degrees outside. It’s always an advantage to know the ideal environment for morels to get a good harvest. When one gathers more than he can consume, morels can always be preserved dehydrated or frozen.

We are fortunate to find morels just around our backyard. Hunting for morels is a once-a-year adventure we always look forward to, so off we went out our door. We realized soon enough that morels had been out for a while and some were starting to look and feel dry. Nonetheless we still had a good time gathering what we could. Just to be out in the woods was already a boost for the kids’ excitement and they took turns picking up what morel Mommy found. They burst out for joy the more when they found the morels themselves.

When I first got curious why people go for miles and even states to look for morels, I asked around how these mushrooms are being prepared for cooking. I read mostly about how good they taste but not much about how to cut and clean them up. I was only told to wash and soak them for two hours or overnight with salt water before cooking. But the idea did not convince me to be enough to get rid of the tiny bugs that may be looming inside. I go the long route preparing my  mushroom finds just to be 100% satisfied with my once-a-year-morel-eating experience.

Morel Preparation Method

1. Cut the tip end of the morels that still has some dirt one by one before rinsing them under running water.
2. Cut each morel vertically and rinse them again in running water, this time making sure the inside is thoroughly clean.
3. Prepare a pot of water and heat it about 98 to 100 degrees F, just hot enough to touch but not scalding. Turn heat off.
4. Soak the washed morels in the pot of hot water for 30 minutes to an hour. This time you can see tiny bugs floating on the water.
5. Wash the soaked morels in running water paying attention to the crevices that may still have some tiny bugs.
6. Prepare a salt water solution in a glass bowl. I just eye-ball mine but if you need to be specific, a tablespoon of salt per two quarts/liters of water would suffice.
7. Soak the morels in the glass bowl of salt water, leaving some 2 to 3 inches head room for solution. Cover it for 2 hours or overnight.
8. Rinse the morels one by one in running water once again. Enjoy your clean morels!
9. Cut to bite-size or as desired
10. Cook in coconut oil or non-hydrogenated butter, add garlic, salt and pepper. Popular recipe here.

Morels in Hot Water: Stages Of Preparation

There are things in life we anticipate to come and couldn’t wait to enjoy. Yet, waiting develops patience which is a virtue that pays for itself. When we wait, we are exercising faith and when we have faith, we develop trust. We also learn to be resilient when things don’t come the way we expect. Patience, faith, trust and resilience are virtues necessary to keep a positive outlook in life. When someone integrates all these, he can face anything that comes his way – and survive. Charles Swindoll said, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Indeed, good things come to those who wait.

It takes maturity to learn how to wait. I know, because I have a toddler. To him, 5 minutes and now mean the same. He needs to be constantly reminded that things come at the right time and he can enjoy them even more when he waits. Yet, I also learn from his faith. He never gets tired to ask again and again for what he wants until he gets it. That is faith at work, right? It is always a joy for me to listen to my little kids when they pray. Sometimes they ask for things that sound impossible to happen, but deep inside I’m trying to figure out how I can make them happen.

I believe it is the same with our heavenly Father. All we have to do is pray and believe He will answer to the best of our interest. When we know we did all we could to realize a dream according to God’s will, He will honor our request. I hope the song below will inspire you to patiently wait for the things you desire. In due time, they will happen.