APRIL 2007

Welcome to our early spring and Easter edition of the JR Mushrooms & Specialties newsletter.

This month we have some great news, luscious mouth-watering recipes and some new products for you.

The most exciting news we pass along is that we now have a chef-in-residence, Andrea Lynn Swengel. Andrea is the author of The DotCom Chef, an acclaimed cookbook that utilizes ingredients that can be found online and of course, at JR Mushrooms & Specialties. Here is what Andre Soltner, former owner of the famous Lutece Restaurant and now Dean of Classic Studies at the French Culinary Institute in New York City had to say about The DotCom Chef:

"Finally, thanks to the Internet, even amateur chefs will be able to cook with great ingredients from small producers. This is a big step in home cooking thanks to The DotCom Chef. Good luck to the home cooks!"

When you place your orders you can also add The DotCom Chef cookbook to your order since we now have it for sale on our website. Here is a little bit about the book.

The Ingredients . . . The Chef . . . The Internet . . . The World-Class Purveyors and The Cookbook

Just for you—the curious and passionate cook—The DotCom Chef opens the exciting and limitless world of incredible ingredients, from the smallest artisan producers of little-known Spanish mountain-region cheeses, to the highest quality southern-coastal Italian olive oils, to the amazingly fresh and still-dewy morning harvests from exotic herb growers and suppliers, to the extraordinary earthy goodness of truffles and mushrooms harvested from the world's bounty by JR Mushroom and Specialties, Inc.

The world of fresh, organic, hard-to-find, hand-made, small production, specialty foods is exploding and growing. Thousands of purveyors are available to you online 'at the click of a mouse.' But knowing which suppliers to use and which products to buy can be daunting for enthusiastic cooks who want to explore and expand their repertoire of favorite dishes. The DotCom Chef eliminates all the mystery . . . all the confusion . . . and gives you sure-thing recipes using sure-thing ingredients from sure-thing purveyors.

As a test kitchen chef, recipe developer and Internet searcher for the best possible ingredients, Andrea Lynn Swengel offers you a collection of proven heirloom recipes along with recommendations for top food purveyors she personally orders from, tests and finds to have the very finest, artisan-quality products and outstanding customer service.

Inside are Tips for Shopping for Food on the Internet, including smart ways to save money on shipping costs. Also included is a huge alphabetical listing of ingredients with a convenient guide to the specialty food purveyors who sell these hard-to-get products on the Internet.

Click here to order your copy of The DotCom Chef

Chef Andrea Lynn Swengel

Andrea will be developing recipes exclusively for us on a monthly basis highlighting holidays and the season's bounty using our hard-to-find products.

I am quite certain you will want to know all about Andrea so here is a bit of background on this very talented chef.

Andrea Lynn Swengel pursues her passions for food writing, recipe creation and cooking in West Des Moines, Iowa. For many years, she was a test kitchen chef for the Emmy Award-wining television writer and director, John Beyer, who pioneered one of the first celebrity chef TV cooking series: Great Chefs of the World; Great Chefs of New Orleans; Great Chefs of the Southwest; Great Chefs Jazz Brunches; and others (www.greatchefs.com). Beyer's monumental culinary work showcased the dishes of chefs who would soon reach legendary, worldwide stardom, including Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, Lidia Bastianich, Todd English and many others, and Chef Andrea tested and perfected the recipes prior to their first appearance on television.

Andrea designs and develops original recipes using little-known ingredients for her own repertoire of dishes and for those of other cooking professionals. She characterizes her signature creations as, "Layers of fresh flavors from layers of fine ingredients."

Andrea is Chef-in-Residence for JR Mushrooms and Specialties, Inc. where she develops unique dishes featuring the flavors of dried mushrooms and other gourmet ingredients found in the company's large selection of products from around the world. New and exciting combinations of flavors will be featured in recipes for holidays, the changing seasons, and for a focus on specific ingredients. Andrea's recipes will be found in the JR Mushrooms and Specialties newsletter, as well as on the website.

Without further ado, here are some delicious recipes she has developed for Easter and early spring.

Easter Eggs
Serves 4 as a breakfast entrée

Ingredients

2 tablespoon butter
8 large eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 JR Madagascar Vanilla Bean
1 five-ounce jar black lumpfish or golden salmon caviar
1/4 cup crème fraiche
salt and pepper

Method

Break eggs into large bowl with heavy cream. Split the JR Madagascar Vanilla Bean in half lengthwise and scrape seeds into the cream and eggs. Whisk to blend well. Spoon 3 tablespoons of caviar into egg mixture and fold gently to avoid bruising the caviar.

Melt butter over medium heat in 9 inch skillet. When butter melts, add egg mixture and gently scramble eggs to desired doneness. Sprinkle eggs with salt and pepper to taste. Place individual servings on plates and top with 1 tablespoon crème fraiche and 1 teaspoon of additional caviar as a garnish. The black caviar will impart to the eggs a spring-like swirl of green color.

Alternatives

Morels. In place of caviar, reconstitute in advance of preparation 10 dried JR Morel Mushrooms in hot water for one hour; drain, dry and finely dice 6 morels and fold into egg mixture; prepare as above. Top finished eggs with crème fraiche and split one whole morel as a top garnish for each serving.

Vanilla. To serve Easter Eggs plain, use the egg mixture and the vanilla and prepare. Garnish each serving with 1/2 teaspoon of mixed lemon and lime zest for spring color and flavors. A holiday hit with children.

Sampler. Prepare the egg and vanilla mixture as above and divide equally into three smaller mixing bowls. Prepare one bowl using the caviar; a second with the morels; and the third with the egg and vanilla mixture. Scramble each preparation and serve three small mounds side-by-side with their respective garnishes for each serving. A visual and taste feast for the Easter breakfast.

Lobster with Vanilla Bourbon Sauce
Serves 4 as an appetizer course

Ingredients

2 tablespoon butter
2 eight-ounce lobster tails
1 JR Madagascar Vanilla Bean
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 1-1/2 teaspoons bourbon
1 tablespoon lemon zest; 4 lemon slices

Method

Put heavy cream, sugar, salt into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. When mixture starts to bubble (do not boil), turn off heat and scrape the JR Madagascar Vanilla Bean into the hot cream. Add scraped bean hull, as well. Let the mixture steep for about 20 minutes. Add bourbon and reheat over low flame.

Split lobster tails in half length wise. Melt butter in large skillet and add tails, flesh side up. Cover and cook over medium heat until lobster meat is done; about 7 minutes.

Remove lobster from shells and slice each one into four or five slices. Place on individual serving plates. Remove vanilla bean from pan and drizzle warm vanilla/bourbon sauce over lobster. Garnish with lemon zest and a slice.

Alternative

Spring Pork Roast with Port and Porcini sauce
Serves 4-6 as an entrée

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons JR Cretalife Estate-bottled Organic Olive Oil
1 three-pound boneless pork loin roast
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 cloves of garlic, slivered
1 teaspoon JR Herbes de Provence
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons minced shallots
1 teaspoon ground JR Five Peppercorn Mix
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup port
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 cup dried JR Porcini Mushrooms with reserved reconstituting liquid.
2 tablespoons mixed lemon and lime zest
10 green table grapes

Method

Place dried JR Porcini Mushrooms in a bowl and reconstitute with warm water. Allow to steep for at least 20 minutes until mushrooms are soft. Carefully remove mushrooms from bowl. Strain remaining liquid through a paper towel or coffee filter to clarify. Set aside.

Cut several small slits in pork roast and insert a garlic sliver and a few leaves of rosemary into each cut. Rub roast with Herbes de Provence.

Heat olive oil in Dutch oven and brown pork roast well on all sides. Cover pan with lid and place in oven. Cook until pork is done (about 1-1/2 hours).

When roast is done, remove it from the Dutch oven and cover with foil to allow it to rest at least 15 minutes. Place Dutch oven over medium flame. Add butter to the pan. When butter has melted, add the minced shallots and stir until shallots are soft. Add red wine to pan to deglaze and scrape up all browned bits from pan. Add thyme leaves and JR Porcini Mushrooms along with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the reserved reconstituted mushroom liquid. Allow mixture to simmer and reduce for about five minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add port and stir in heavy cream. Taste and add salt and 1 teaspoon ground JR Five Peppercorn Mix pepper to taste.

Spring Tulip Cups
Serves 4

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Ingredients

1 sheet puff pastry
1 generous cup JR dried Premium Wild Mushroom Mix
1/4 cup liquid used to reconstitute mushrooms
2 eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon fresh sage, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground JR Five Peppercorn Mix
4 slices of Jarlsberg, Grueyere or Swiss cheese.
4 edible, candied flowers or spring blossoms

Method

Place JR Premium Wild Mushrooms in hot water to reconstitute for at least twenty minutes or longer. Carefully lift mushrooms from liquid and place in a separate bowl. Strain liquid through paper towel or coffee filter to clarify. Set liquid aside.

Cut puff pastry into four squares and place each square into a large muffin pan. Pull up the four corners of each pastry so it resembles a tulip in shape.

Put eggs and cream in a mixing bowl and whisk until well blended. Stir in 1/4 cup of reserved mushroom liquid; add sage, oregano, salt and ground JR Five Peppercorn Mix. Roughly chop JR Premium Wild Mushrooms and add them to the egg and cream mixture. Pour the mushroom and custard mixture into the four pastry shells and top each one with the cheese. Bake 12-15 minutes until pastry is golden brown and filling is set; remove from muffin pan, plate and garnish with edible candied flower or other spring blossom.