The Art of Cooking with Fresh Ingredients

When it comes to cooking, the quality of your ingredients can make all the difference in the world. In this article, we'll explore the art of cooking with fresh ingredients, from selecting the perfect produce to creating a delicious and balanced dish.

To start, let's talk about temperature. A good rule of thumb is to cook at 380 degrees Fahrenheit, but don't be afraid to experiment with different temperatures to find what works best for you. For example, if you're looking to achieve a crispy crust on your pizza, try cooking it at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for a hot and fast finish. On the other hand, if you prefer a more relaxed pace, try cooking at a lower temperature for a longer period of time.

One of the key ingredients in our recipe is yogurt sauce, which is made with a cup of Greek yogurt, a pinch of salt to taste, and a squeeze of lemon juice from a third of a lemon. We're also adding some dried oregano, toasted sesame seeds, sumac, and buckwheat groats for added flavor and texture.

Let's take a closer look at the mushrooms, which are a key component of our dish. We've got maitake, trumpet-shaped oyster mushrooms, and a few other varieties that add depth and complexity to our sauce. For example, did you know that some mushrooms can even resemble scallops? The combination of flavors and textures in these little guys is truly magical.

Now, let's talk about the importance of freshness when it comes to cooking. In this recipe, we're using fresh herbs like mint and chives to add a pop of color and flavor to our dish. We're also saving some buckwheat groats for garnish, because let's be real - they're just too darn delicious to waste.

When it comes to preparing the mushrooms, we want to make sure they're cooked just right. A little butter and a sprinkle of salt can go a long way in bringing out their natural flavors. And don't even get us started on the joy of adding fresh herbs like mint and chives to our dish - it's like a breath of fresh air.

One of the best things about cooking with fresh ingredients is the sense of surprise that comes from discovering new flavors and textures. It's like having an adventure in every bite! And when you're working with high-quality ingredients, the result is always worth it.

Of course, no discussion of cooking with fresh ingredients would be complete without mentioning the importance of creativity and experimentation. Whether you're trying out a new recipe or simply experimenting with different flavors and techniques, remember that the key to success lies in having fun and being willing to take risks.

As Chris from Seacoast Mushrooms so aptly put it, "The only rule at this pizza party is that you guys put ramps on it." That's what makes cooking with fresh ingredients so exciting - there are no rules or limitations, just endless possibilities. So go ahead, get creative, and see where the journey takes you.

And finally, let's not forget to appreciate the little things in life - like a beautiful mushroom, for example. The way they grow, the flavors they add to our dishes, the sense of wonder they inspire - these are the things that make cooking truly magical. So next time you're cooking up a storm, take a moment to appreciate the humble mushroom and all its delicious wonders.

The Art of Eating

As we finish up our dish and savor the last bite, it's hard not to feel a sense of satisfaction and contentment. There's something special about eating food that's been prepared with love and care - something that speaks to our deepest desires for connection, community, and nourishment.

And yet, even as we sit here enjoying our meal, there's always the nagging question of what's next? What flavors will we try next? What new ingredients will we discover? The art of eating is not just about savoring a delicious meal - it's also about exploring new horizons and pushing the boundaries of taste and imagination.

As we sit here in our forest-inspired setting, surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature, it's hard not to feel a sense of awe and wonder at the world around us. The trees sway gently in the breeze, the birds sing their sweet melodies, and the mushrooms grow quietly beneath our feet - all of this is a reminder that there's always more to explore, more to discover, and more to savor.

And so we'll continue on this journey, one bite at a time, exploring new flavors, meeting new people, and discovering new worlds. For in the end, it's not just about what we eat - it's about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. The art of cooking with fresh ingredients is just one small part of that journey, but it's a journey worth taking every time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enjust lick that lemon no okay hey guys and it's alive we're here at seacoast mushrooms up in connecticut we're gonna be meeting up with my buddy chris who grows these beautiful mushrooms we're gonna head back to my house make one of my favorite mushroom dishes let's go that's it beautiful day kev i love that shuffle you got chris going on man hey good to see you bro thanks for having me bud uh it's a hell of a shop you got here man you know a lot you know when you think of mushrooms you just think of rotten log in the woods or something but quiet on set please oops sorry no it's fine dude wash your mortar well yeah i mean like i was saying you know when i think of growing mushrooms you know i don't think of giant retort machines and i mean there's some kind of damper flu system opening to a tank there i mean like you're a mad scientist sure we could take a process where we took solid logs and drilled holes and sort of inoculated the log let it incubate but it takes a really long time let's take years yeah years so what we do here is we accelerate that process by using sawdust scientists we'll take the hardwood right break it all down into tiny little sawdust and then we enrich it with nutrients that the mushrooms would need to grow beautiful and then we introduce um spawn what we call it mycelium to the sawdust we have to actually keep that spawn going and so we also sterilize grain so they can grow on this super nutrient rich right grain and then we use that grain almost as like seed and we use that to inoculate the sawdust bag so how does it do it in nature is it just different spores mingle in the air that's it that's it but what we need to do is create an environment that the mushroom has no competition for growth we actually run it through our sterilizer which is really just like a giant pressure cooker a giant oh my god look at that thing i'm gonna need one of those i'm not going in there no no so we bring it into this room which we call the cool down room and you can literally see by looking in the window here this was done two days ago look at those a week ago on the left those are actually pink oysters two weeks we go from this loose bag of sawdust to this tight brick of unbelievable and this is like literally it's like it would like it would fall apart if i dump the bag over it would make a pile on the floor right this guy it's a brick that thing's going anywhere awesome yeah let's go see the next stage sounds good oh yeah i see what you got going on here so it's kind of creepy because it's shipping containers right oh the smell kevin chris you got a lot going on in here man you got the humidity and this is like something out of like a sci-fi movie right it was warmer in there than it is in here so it's cooler and the humidity is higher and we change that high co2 level down to like ambient co2 by poking holes in the bags what happens is the mycelium has now gone into this mode of i'm gonna die because the environment's different and so it wants to preserve its species right in order to preserve a species it's going to release spores wow so before it can release spores though it's got to put out these fruit bodies which are the vehicle for spore release it's awesome there's a lot of oysters in here so yeah pink oysters blue oysters got some golden oysters in the back wow like if you didn't know what this was and you stumbled across it in the woods like don't your first things yeah like be scared eat it it's pretty good a lot of folks think it tastes like fruit like melon i even get like a little like peppercorn like pink peppercorny okay shiitakes shiitakes one of my favorite mushrooms to cook with and then behind you one of my favorites this mushroom is just head of the wood or my hockey try the maitake it's such a tasty mushroom now i'm in the game it almost tingles on the back it does a little szechuany i have like a little piece of like sour candy underneath the back of my tongue sure anybody wants am i talking talking yeah just if you just get a few cockies go to start picking away they almost feel bad almost almost these little nuggets right they're kind of cute almost look like dark like german rye loaf vulcan broth or something or whatever it's called right i'd slice that up with some homemade butter on it sure let's grab a few of my takis huh yeah look this guy's beautiful right this thing's absolutely ready to go you kind of put it between your knees yeah your fingers your thumbs at the base uh-huh wow look at them look beautiful that is cool bud i'd put that in an outdoor show it might even be a showerhead out here shower with mushrooms so chris the pink ones that's an oyster mushroom right that's an artist we painstakingly paint each petal pink fascinating fungus we'll be in touch chris i'll talk to you soon man and uh i'll have to have you come over on time i'll cook you up my favorite way sounds good to me yeah oh that sounds bad i'll cook up some mushrooms my favorite way i'm gonna be squinting the whole time i look like i'm pissed the whole time all right so we just left seacoast with chris we'll be in touch guys i'll talk to you soon man enough back in my backyard here we're setting up here i got the traeger preheating and yeah we're gonna do one of my favorite little smoked kind of baked little mixed mushrooms that we got from chris really easy it's just a really awesome way to utilize vast different types of mushrooms all right so i got in here some buckwheat all right little buckwheat groats you can get them at your supers markets or you can get them online whatever you want to do but it's basically just the little the little seed of a buckwheat and i just throw them in there so they bake in there get a little crispy and they pick up a nice little smoky flavor just to give it a nice little garnish a little garnishy crisp you know a little crunch america loves crunch so do i and even though it's a grill you know it's a grate it's also just an awesome kind of just a smoky oven so i use a decent amount of oil olive oil nice but you can use whatever oil you want and then i just start sporadically putting these things down that's that king trumpets that we've got same with the with the maitakes and everything i don't really cut these you know if you just follow the natural kind of tearing of it it kind of just shreds out nicely into these petals yeah so we're going to add all the mushrooms to it except those yellow oysters we'll add the the stems to it but those real delicate petals will add right at the we'll add them at the last minute the stem the inside that like sponginess of the uh of the the golden oyster i'm just gonna slice that into little chunks and we'll throw that in there too that's all edible and these i just kind of need to clean off any woody bits down by the stem and then i just throw them in like that a little more olive oil on top nice and then i just have a few cloves of garlic and i'm just i crushed it about a few minutes ago i'm just going to chop it into like little chunks yeah easy i'll hit it with just a pinch of salt too and then into the trigger we go we're going to leave it in there keep an eye on it i put it to it's at 380 okay 385 whatever and you know you could go low and slow for longer if you wanted to or you could probably crank it up you could probably do this at 450 kind of hot and fast i kind of like it right in the middle all right cool let's make this yogurt sauce we're gonna add about a cup of greek yogurt okay we'll hit it with a little salt to taste and we're gonna do you know start small we'll do the juice of a third of a lemon and then i got get your little favorite brand or even make it yourself a little zatar all right a lot of variations on it but this one's like dried oregano toasted sesame seeds a little sumac and i'm going to take just a little bit of the buckwheat grow so we're going to save some for the top and i'm going to incorporate some into the yogurt too and then oh kevin stay here let me go get the pepper a little black pepper okay beautiful oh you know we'll add two right into it just a little bit i'm gonna add it on top as well but i got some like little chives i found these in the yard little wild onion so we'll just chive these up a little hope the wind don't come here not a lot okay just a little a subtle kiss of onion and then i also have a little mint in here but i'm gonna wait cause if you slide mink tends to get a little i'd do that right at the end because sometimes if you slice it up too long ahead of time it can start to bruise on you and get a little a little foo on you not a brand all right well here we are i guess i can stir the mushrooms the trumpet things down we're gonna need a few i'm gonna test one hot the scallop of the forest um that texture this is the mushroom that sometimes it almost does look like a scallop but like almost like it came from the ocean right that little bit of smokiness just goes so nicely with it a little butter man you can't go wrong a little butter and shrooms yeah babe all right leave that alone that's going to take a little while i fudged my time this is going to take 30 minutes so i got the you know about cup and a half or whatever of uh castlevania olives and the mushrooms to the those little delicate petals of the the yellow oyster mushroom that we saved um because they're just so delicate they didn't need to be cooked and roasted like that you know add a nice little freshness a little color to it as well as the olives i'm just gonna dump it in in here let's check out the check out the mushrooms too oh yeah that's what we're looking for it's kind of perfect mushrooms are perfect fascinating fungus so we're going to prep our garnishes a little i got some of those those wild onions that grow you know in the spring all over here let me get the mint too all right bud just a little all right in the meantime we could set up our little yogurt little yogurt deal we're just gonna give it a little just a little creamy kind of pad you know nice and we're gonna put a little bit of herbs on it a little bit of the fresh the tar and the buckwheat groats look at that perfect and get a little composed bite with a little olive a little bit of each of the mushrooms you go back on there every now and then you make something you're like you just surprise yourself how damn good it is you know they are just loaded with this unique flavor that i don't know how else to put but like umami right and just a satisfying rich meaty it's not even a vegetable it's a mushroom do that again well big thanks to chris over at seacoast mushrooms for hooking me up with some awesome beautiful mixed mushrooms maitake trumpet oysters just kind of is just very satisfying filling you just feel good after eating it eat more mushrooms smoke more mushrooms that sounds weird bone appetit we'll see you next time baby close your eyes picture some birds going all right and then boom you're in like this like misty like evergreen forest i'm i'm laying on the duff these pine needles and you smell what's that mushrooms all around you i transformed i was there i don't know about you guys but i went somewhere sure would you say the name of this was false hellebore false hellebore hellebore it's to be our band name oh my god there's a huge spider on me oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god the only one rule at this pizza party is that you guys put ramps on it i place it kind of right now right in that centerjust lick that lemon no okay hey guys and it's alive we're here at seacoast mushrooms up in connecticut we're gonna be meeting up with my buddy chris who grows these beautiful mushrooms we're gonna head back to my house make one of my favorite mushroom dishes let's go that's it beautiful day kev i love that shuffle you got chris going on man hey good to see you bro thanks for having me bud uh it's a hell of a shop you got here man you know a lot you know when you think of mushrooms you just think of rotten log in the woods or something but quiet on set please oops sorry no it's fine dude wash your mortar well yeah i mean like i was saying you know when i think of growing mushrooms you know i don't think of giant retort machines and i mean there's some kind of damper flu system opening to a tank there i mean like you're a mad scientist sure we could take a process where we took solid logs and drilled holes and sort of inoculated the log let it incubate but it takes a really long time let's take years yeah years so what we do here is we accelerate that process by using sawdust scientists we'll take the hardwood right break it all down into tiny little sawdust and then we enrich it with nutrients that the mushrooms would need to grow beautiful and then we introduce um spawn what we call it mycelium to the sawdust we have to actually keep that spawn going and so we also sterilize grain so they can grow on this super nutrient rich right grain and then we use that grain almost as like seed and we use that to inoculate the sawdust bag so how does it do it in nature is it just different spores mingle in the air that's it that's it but what we need to do is create an environment that the mushroom has no competition for growth we actually run it through our sterilizer which is really just like a giant pressure cooker a giant oh my god look at that thing i'm gonna need one of those i'm not going in there no no so we bring it into this room which we call the cool down room and you can literally see by looking in the window here this was done two days ago look at those a week ago on the left those are actually pink oysters two weeks we go from this loose bag of sawdust to this tight brick of unbelievable and this is like literally it's like it would like it would fall apart if i dump the bag over it would make a pile on the floor right this guy it's a brick that thing's going anywhere awesome yeah let's go see the next stage sounds good oh yeah i see what you got going on here so it's kind of creepy because it's shipping containers right oh the smell kevin chris you got a lot going on in here man you got the humidity and this is like something out of like a sci-fi movie right it was warmer in there than it is in here so it's cooler and the humidity is higher and we change that high co2 level down to like ambient co2 by poking holes in the bags what happens is the mycelium has now gone into this mode of i'm gonna die because the environment's different and so it wants to preserve its species right in order to preserve a species it's going to release spores wow so before it can release spores though it's got to put out these fruit bodies which are the vehicle for spore release it's awesome there's a lot of oysters in here so yeah pink oysters blue oysters got some golden oysters in the back wow like if you didn't know what this was and you stumbled across it in the woods like don't your first things yeah like be scared eat it it's pretty good a lot of folks think it tastes like fruit like melon i even get like a little like peppercorn like pink peppercorny okay shiitakes shiitakes one of my favorite mushrooms to cook with and then behind you one of my favorites this mushroom is just head of the wood or my hockey try the maitake it's such a tasty mushroom now i'm in the game it almost tingles on the back it does a little szechuany i have like a little piece of like sour candy underneath the back of my tongue sure anybody wants am i talking talking yeah just if you just get a few cockies go to start picking away they almost feel bad almost almost these little nuggets right they're kind of cute almost look like dark like german rye loaf vulcan broth or something or whatever it's called right i'd slice that up with some homemade butter on it sure let's grab a few of my takis huh yeah look this guy's beautiful right this thing's absolutely ready to go you kind of put it between your knees yeah your fingers your thumbs at the base uh-huh wow look at them look beautiful that is cool bud i'd put that in an outdoor show it might even be a showerhead out here shower with mushrooms so chris the pink ones that's an oyster mushroom right that's an artist we painstakingly paint each petal pink fascinating fungus we'll be in touch chris i'll talk to you soon man and uh i'll have to have you come over on time i'll cook you up my favorite way sounds good to me yeah oh that sounds bad i'll cook up some mushrooms my favorite way i'm gonna be squinting the whole time i look like i'm pissed the whole time all right so we just left seacoast with chris we'll be in touch guys i'll talk to you soon man enough back in my backyard here we're setting up here i got the traeger preheating and yeah we're gonna do one of my favorite little smoked kind of baked little mixed mushrooms that we got from chris really easy it's just a really awesome way to utilize vast different types of mushrooms all right so i got in here some buckwheat all right little buckwheat groats you can get them at your supers markets or you can get them online whatever you want to do but it's basically just the little the little seed of a buckwheat and i just throw them in there so they bake in there get a little crispy and they pick up a nice little smoky flavor just to give it a nice little garnish a little garnishy crisp you know a little crunch america loves crunch so do i and even though it's a grill you know it's a grate it's also just an awesome kind of just a smoky oven so i use a decent amount of oil olive oil nice but you can use whatever oil you want and then i just start sporadically putting these things down that's that king trumpets that we've got same with the with the maitakes and everything i don't really cut these you know if you just follow the natural kind of tearing of it it kind of just shreds out nicely into these petals yeah so we're going to add all the mushrooms to it except those yellow oysters we'll add the the stems to it but those real delicate petals will add right at the we'll add them at the last minute the stem the inside that like sponginess of the uh of the the golden oyster i'm just gonna slice that into little chunks and we'll throw that in there too that's all edible and these i just kind of need to clean off any woody bits down by the stem and then i just throw them in like that a little more olive oil on top nice and then i just have a few cloves of garlic and i'm just i crushed it about a few minutes ago i'm just going to chop it into like little chunks yeah easy i'll hit it with just a pinch of salt too and then into the trigger we go we're going to leave it in there keep an eye on it i put it to it's at 380 okay 385 whatever and you know you could go low and slow for longer if you wanted to or you could probably crank it up you could probably do this at 450 kind of hot and fast i kind of like it right in the middle all right cool let's make this yogurt sauce we're gonna add about a cup of greek yogurt okay we'll hit it with a little salt to taste and we're gonna do you know start small we'll do the juice of a third of a lemon and then i got get your little favorite brand or even make it yourself a little zatar all right a lot of variations on it but this one's like dried oregano toasted sesame seeds a little sumac and i'm going to take just a little bit of the buckwheat grow so we're going to save some for the top and i'm going to incorporate some into the yogurt too and then oh kevin stay here let me go get the pepper a little black pepper okay beautiful oh you know we'll add two right into it just a little bit i'm gonna add it on top as well but i got some like little chives i found these in the yard little wild onion so we'll just chive these up a little hope the wind don't come here not a lot okay just a little a subtle kiss of onion and then i also have a little mint in here but i'm gonna wait cause if you slide mink tends to get a little i'd do that right at the end because sometimes if you slice it up too long ahead of time it can start to bruise on you and get a little a little foo on you not a brand all right well here we are i guess i can stir the mushrooms the trumpet things down we're gonna need a few i'm gonna test one hot the scallop of the forest um that texture this is the mushroom that sometimes it almost does look like a scallop but like almost like it came from the ocean right that little bit of smokiness just goes so nicely with it a little butter man you can't go wrong a little butter and shrooms yeah babe all right leave that alone that's going to take a little while i fudged my time this is going to take 30 minutes so i got the you know about cup and a half or whatever of uh castlevania olives and the mushrooms to the those little delicate petals of the the yellow oyster mushroom that we saved um because they're just so delicate they didn't need to be cooked and roasted like that you know add a nice little freshness a little color to it as well as the olives i'm just gonna dump it in in here let's check out the check out the mushrooms too oh yeah that's what we're looking for it's kind of perfect mushrooms are perfect fascinating fungus so we're going to prep our garnishes a little i got some of those those wild onions that grow you know in the spring all over here let me get the mint too all right bud just a little all right in the meantime we could set up our little yogurt little yogurt deal we're just gonna give it a little just a little creamy kind of pad you know nice and we're gonna put a little bit of herbs on it a little bit of the fresh the tar and the buckwheat groats look at that perfect and get a little composed bite with a little olive a little bit of each of the mushrooms you go back on there every now and then you make something you're like you just surprise yourself how damn good it is you know they are just loaded with this unique flavor that i don't know how else to put but like umami right and just a satisfying rich meaty it's not even a vegetable it's a mushroom do that again well big thanks to chris over at seacoast mushrooms for hooking me up with some awesome beautiful mixed mushrooms maitake trumpet oysters just kind of is just very satisfying filling you just feel good after eating it eat more mushrooms smoke more mushrooms that sounds weird bone appetit we'll see you next time baby close your eyes picture some birds going all right and then boom you're in like this like misty like evergreen forest i'm i'm laying on the duff these pine needles and you smell what's that mushrooms all around you i transformed i was there i don't know about you guys but i went somewhere sure would you say the name of this was false hellebore false hellebore hellebore it's to be our band name oh my god there's a huge spider on me oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god the only one rule at this pizza party is that you guys put ramps on it i place it kind of right now right in that center\n"