The Beneficiary

My boss called me into his office this morning and said, "hey, would you like some morel mushrooms?"  As I thought to my self, "is this a trick question?", he added, "I have a buddy who gathers wild mushrooms, and he went out this weekend and he gathered pounds and pounds of them.  He sold most of them to local restaurants, but he gave me a couple of pounds, and I can't use them all."  "Absolutely" was my response.  A few hours later Russ showed up at my desk with a plastic bag containing about 3/4 of a pound of the freshest, most beautiful, morel mushrooms I've ever seen.

I didn't want them to deteriorate, and I figured that the more I did to them, the more I'd screw them up, so I cooked up about half of them this evening in a very simple pasta dish.  I sauteed the morels with some finely diced shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic.  Then I added some asparagus, and a cup of chicken broth, about a cup of cream, and a few teaspoons of fresh thyme from my garden.

Ten minutes later I tossed the sauce with some grated parmesan, salt, and pepper, and it was dinner time.

I overcooked the asparagus just a bit, but it was still delicious.  Spring on a plate.  Tomorrow morning it's scrambled eggs with morels for breakfast.  Thanks again Russ.

I had no idea that morels could be found in central Texas.  Now I really want to take one of those "Hunting For Wild Mushrooms" classes I see advertised from time to time.