Bea, wolves and mushrooms pickers…..

finger food of Porcini mushrooms

Welcome to the country! On Sunday me and Nick went to the forest to look for mushrooms. The forests of Italy are slowly becoming repopulated with Bears  ,Wolves and thousands of mushroom pickers . Every mushroom picker has his or her favorite secret location. The competition is fierce. The prize find is the Porcini mushroom and at the end of a long walk we didn’t find anything, no Porcini and no big scary animals. So we finely bought the porcini at the local market! Now,  let me introduce  you to  my two goats. 

  Since we came to live in Umbria, I had the bright idea that it would be very useful for us to have a goat. Wrong! I thought a goat would work a little bit like a strimmer..Wrong! in fact I later discovered that a goat loves to eat everything: geraniums, vines, olives and all the trees …. in short all the things you don’t want them to eat.  I then discovered that a goat could have depression when they are alone and therefore they must be in a minimum of two. More recently I have discovered that goats can live up to nearly 20 years !!!!!! Hilda was the first. Then we got Bea to stop Hilda from feeling lonely . She was very small and had bandy-legs. We decided to take her because she was separated from the other goats and the farmer who sold her to us was of the opinion , she wouldn’t live long. Any way we brought her home and feed her powdered milk from a bottle. She grew and grew until she took on the appearance of a small horse. Hilda , rather than being pleased about her new roommate started to look a little bit worried about the fact that  Bea could eat not only her own food ,but enough food to satisfy a small army. Unfortunately last night Bea was attacked by a dog ,or as our neighbor thinks, possible a WOLF. The vet came immediately and we think she’s going to be o.k.

 So  yesterday night we cooked the Porcini , but couldn’t help feeling that a wolf had followed us home!

Ingredients for 8 finger food
2 Porcini mushrooms
a handful of finely chopped parsley leaves
1 / 2 clove garlic, finely chopped
a dash of lemon juice
Evo oil
2 slices of Speck (smoke ham)
1 cup semolina 

How it works:

Clean mushrooms with a damp cloth. Cut into 4 sections every mushroom. In a bowl combine parsley, garlic, Evo oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Dip every sections of mushroom in the mixture , one at a time. Cut each slice of speck in half and then length  ways. You will get a total of 8 slices. Roll the speck slice around  the stem of the mushroom. Repeat. Roll the mushrooms in semolina. In a hot oven grill  for 15 minutes or until crispy.