The saffron milk caps keep coming in the pine plantations near me. Sadly they're all being harvested so I don't think I'll be able to have the same feast as this year. I'm almost sick of them to be honest but still, every time I fry them in butter, I'm in love all over again! On this walk, I collect lots of little ones as there's sooo many, but leave plenty for others. The rain from the last few days have made them all excitedly fruit. If you're looking, you can't really see them from the car - they're more likely to be pushing up under pine needles and grass like this little guy.

I also found some slippery jacks, which I've wanted to find for ages. I still haven't the will nor courage to actually eat them - they can cause a stomach upset and you have to peel off the cap. They're very mucousy and kinda gross. I've never actually heard anyone go 'ooh, yummy, slippery jacks' but I know people dry them for use in stocks and so on. I guess anything edible is a bonus, but I think next time I'll leave this one be, at least for another forager to get excited about.

I'd really love to go further afield too as I heard 6kg of porcini were found in the Macedon Ranges by one Australian mushroom hunter. That's an hour and a half from me so I might try to do that this week. For now, I have the beautiful pine forests which I'm growing to love a lot, having spent a lot of time in them of late. There's something so magical and quiet about them.

Last week I was at the Melbourne markets and found pine mushrooms, as saffron milk caps are also known by, for $55 a kilo. Isn't that crazy? I thought of selling some locally but as soon as you make people see something wild and free has value, the place would be ransacked.

The other thing I found of interest in the forest are these red amanitas. I notice one has white dots, the other hasn't. Talking to Dad in the hospital this week, he tells me that his Mum used to pick the white dotted ones (muscaria) and boil them up and eat them. I presume she'd toss the liquid first. Now we're all raised to see them as deadly poisonous, but as I heard somehow say, if we ate them culturally, the guidebooks might say 'poisonous unless boiled and liquid discarded'. I find it fascinating. We also met a guy in the woods who was microdosing psilobins and collecting these amanita to dry and sprinkle in his tea. THe muscimol, one of hte chemicals in these mushrooms, is meant to be good for PTSD and anxiety. I really want to try them but I daren't. I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience here.

I've found the saffron milk caps to be great in stir fries as they don't go slimy like ordinary mushrooms and keep their firmness. They have quite a bite to them and a very mild flavour. I do like them best in butter though. Lactarius deliciousa, as they're known, 'lactate' or exude saffron coloured liquid which turns the butter a beautiful colour. It's this I make to top a soup - sauteeing garlic tops and spring onions in the butter first, then adding the mushrooms and giving them a good cook before adding a little garlic honey, salt and pepper.

For the soup, it had to be wintery nettle soup, the spiky green leaves foraged from my garden where they have finally planted themselves in a convenient position near the compost. I don't mind, as I do harvest a lot for tea and soup, so they don't get out of control.

To make the soup is soup-er easy. To serve two, grab four potatoes and an onion, and saute the onion before adding water, stock and potatoes, and a good handful of the nettles. Don't worry about chopping them - the blender will do that work. Just don't get stung. Some people LIKE being stung by nettles but I'll be fine, thanks. I also added a few spoonfuls of dried shitake, dried oyster mushrooms, dried saffies, and dried porcini. All those beta glucans and fibre have got to do some good, right?

Then you simply puree it in a blender and add seasoning to taste, and drizzle the garlicky saffies on the top. I served it with warm flatbread.

It's been a few days since I ate this soup and though I was almsot sick of saffies, even looking at my pictures makes me want to rush out and pick some more. I'll give it a few days for the rain to do it's work and the mushrooms to recover from the weekend foragers. Or maybe I'll go porchini hunting at Mt Macedon.

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With Love,