Success with previously frozen morels

I’d gotten advice that I could FoodSaver and freeze morels when Costco had an incredible deal on them - $16/#. I thawed a package yesterday and they were really sad looking (no pix). Soaked a couple of paper towels after they were thawed. But they cooked up beautifully. Sauteed in butter, s&p and at the end poured in a little heavy cream. What a treat for midsummer.

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Two morel stories:

  1. I grew up in Michigan. Some of the fondest memories I have of my sometimes violent father were of mushroom hunting in the spring. We often found meadow mushrooms, essentially wild white mushrooms, but we always searched for morels - the gold standard of mid-west wild mushrooms, but to no avail.
    One of my chores was to burn the trash. I am old, in those days recycling paper was burning it. One morning I took the trash out to burn and, lo and behold, we had a six foot stretch of morels growing along the fence. I ran screaming into the house and the whole family ran out to behold it. My father, a great cook if a not-so-great parent, made an incredible stir fried beef, morels, and tomatoes out of them (in 1967 - we were ahead of the curve in American cooking).

  2. A dear friend moved into a new house in Beverly Hills circa 1999. She, a fellow foodie, had a new sod lawn installed. The first time we came to visit there were morels sprouting up all over her lawn. They were just coming up so I implored her to call me when they were ready. She decided they were poisonous and had her gardener (she couldn’t commit the murder herself) pluck them up and throw them away. I only hope he had the savvy to take them home and cook them.

Point of the stories - God bless you Cath for striking while the iron was hot! I missed a deal on Costco chantrelles and have been kicking myself ever since. I can send you the more-or-less recipe for my dad’s stir fries if you want, but mostly I am just happy for you!

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I bought lots of those chanterelles (?sp) and made lots of soup.

I’m unlikely to ever do anything other than saute’ but if you have time yes please. And thanks.

On vacation right now. Will send recipe next week. As you live in Tahoe I don’t suppose you have to vacation, but to we urban dwellers its quite nice.

We NEVER take for granted how lucky we are to live here. My late mother-in-law and her sister built our cabin in the early 60s…for $12K!!!

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