October Thus Far

Where does the time go?!  I actually know right where it goes I just wish it I could control the speed of it all. You know- to fast forward through the laundry and dishes and vacuuming and press slow motion during the sweet times with kids, friends and family and those rare, rare moments I have to myself to recharge.

Here are a few glimpses into our last few weeks.

I'm sorry this photo is blurry.  I just wasn't willing to get any closer.  Sadie had run inside saying there was a huge raccoon by the red raspberries.  To make a long story short- it was acting really strange so I called animal control and a ranger came out and put it down.  It was a beautiful animal but the safety of our kids trumped its sick self.

We traveled to Jamey's parents' house for applesauce making and when we drove in the driveway, they were well on their way!  They had all the apples and jars washed, many apples were cut and a large vat of applesauce had already been turned through the strainer.  Three cheers for my amazing in-laws!!

After making applesauce and celebrating Jamey's birthday with his family, we traveled north into Sullivan County, PA, where my family is part owner of a hunting cabin (where I've been going since I was very young).  We like to travel up this particular weekend for the local Fall Festival.  If you ever have a chance to go, you must!  There are craft and food booths galore but what we enjoy the most are the lumberjack competitions- log rolling (above), chainsaw carving, ax throwing, spring boarding, hot saw competitions, etc.  Jamey would love to enter one of the competitions some year. Pharmacist lumberjacks are a rare breed, I would think:-).

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying family (particularly my newest nephew who we met for the first time), taking walks and playing in the creek. Oh, and eating. We do a lot of that there as well.

Walking with my {almost 12-year-old} boy.

At home, the rest of the garden was brought inside- white potatoes, sweet potatoes, dry beans (Scarlet Lady Runners below), butternut squash, some surprise tomatoes and peppers, and...

...a huge bowl of shiitake mushrooms.

With the garden gleaned and the applesauce made, our harvest season is complete...except for our pig. But she's a story for another time.

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Shopping for Dinner in My Backyard

Finally.  After a long winter, I can shop outside again.

I bought this small Shiitake Mushroom Cookbook published the year I graduated high school.  I was able to preview its table of contents online and knew there would be lots of recipes I'd want to try.  One of the things I already learned from reading the cooking instructions in the front of the book was that they need to be cooked over low heat to keep them from getting chewy.  Boy, did it work.  They were melt in your mouth soft.

This salad came together based on what I found outside.  Chopped asparagus and sliced Shiitake mushrooms (stems removed) were sauteed separately in some butter.  Once cooked, I combined them with a generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some salt.  I transferred them warm onto beds of young lettuce and topped the salad with feta cheese.  

Swoon.

I am falling in love with our mushroom logs.  Frequent soakings this spring has kept them producing nicely. I'm psyched for the next batch because I have a lot of new recipes to try.  

To find out how we got started with Shiitake mushrooms, read here.

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Too Busy to Post: So Why Am I Posting?

Can your head spin in a good way?  I think it can if you know the spinning (or the degree to which it's spinning) has an end.

I've started two projects.  One has to do with Christmas so my lips are sealed on that one (after Christmas I'll share).  If you want to make gifts for Christmas, now is the time to start.  If you'd like some ideas, check out My Crafty Sisters Series.  I have very crafty sisters.

The other project has to do with this....

Lord, help me.  It has it's own story which I'll share once I'm done.  Part of me is kicking myself for starting it now but the other part of me had reasons to begin.  I should really get myselves together.  Some people have family meetings- maybe I need me meetings.

School, of course, is taking up a lot of my time but it's going well (right this very week, Praise you, Jesus). Older kids do become a lot more independent with their work which gives me hope that I can handle three in school next year.

I dried some of our own Shiitake mushrooms to have for soups and casseroles this winter.  I just followed the instructions in my dehydrator guide.

We went to one of my favorite place on earth a couple weekends ago and had a lovely time. If we could move there, I think we might.

Then, last weekend, I participated in a women's retreat our church organized that focused on integrating our spiritual and physical beings.  I could write a whole series of posts on my experience with this and maybe I will.  In the dead of winter.  When all my projects are done.  And I'm curled up in front of the fire.  Oh, wait. I just might fall asleep if all that comes to be.

So, that's all for now.  I really shouldn't be here in the first place but I guess I just wanted to check in and say hello. I'll be back soon with a Christmas Cookbook deal you won't want to miss.

Take care and don't forget to take deep breaths and spend plenty of time in prayer this busy, busy time of year.

Love,
Jane

Sarah, our most spoiled chicken

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Shiitake Mushroom Update & Recipe

If there is one thing we've learned in our two years of "growing" shiitake mushrooms it is that if we want mushrooms, we can't ignore the logs.  At least not in these first couple years.

Last year, we didn't have an ideal way to soak the logs (remember- they enjoy a nice dip in temperature before triggering a bloom of mushrooms) and we often just plumb to forgot to even attempt the soakings and thus ate very few mushrooms.

This was the way this past summer was going as well until Jamey bought a heavy duty trash can- big enough to submerge them.  Oh, and we (he) remembered to submerge them.  That's a very important part.  And surprise, surprise- we were gifted with mushrooms.

I finally had enough to actually make something!  I vaguely remembered a recipe in a Molly Katzen cookbook I used to own for a broccoli and mushroom main dish that called for egg noodles.

I couldn't remember any more details and didn't like the recipes I came across online that called for cans of mushroom soup. Piecing some things together from several recipes, I came up with a rice-based dish that turned out very nicely.  Maybe it was because they're shiitake mushrooms or the fact that they were fresh, but this dish held it's mushroom flavor beautifully.  Sometimes I eat something with mushrooms and I can't even taste them.  This is not the case with this dish.

It was creamy and tasty- perfect for cooler days and delicious reheated for lunch the next day.  Molly Katzen, eat your heart out.  Seriously.  I really would invite her over for lunch and serve her some if she'd like to come.

Shiitake Mushroom and Broccoli Casserole
This recipe fills a 9 x 13 inch pan.  I divided it between two 8 x 8 pans, freezing one prior to baking for another day.  I used three-fourths brown rice and one-fourth quinoa.

6 cups cooked brown rice (or a combination of brown rice and quinoa)
4 cups steamed broccoli florets, chopped in bite-sized peices, or the equivalent of frozen broccoli, thawed
6 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. flour
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups shiitake mushrooms, washed and chopped
3/4 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup sour cream (I used light)
1 cup vegetable broth
3-4 cups shredded Monterrey Jack cheese, divided
3-4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Cook the brown rice (with the quinoa, if using, according to the brown rice directions). Transfer the cooked rice to a large mixing bowl.  Steam the broccoli, drain it and add it to the rice.  In a large sauce pan, melt the butter.  Whisk in the 4 tbsp. of flour, stirring over medium high heat until it thickens and turns light brown. Add the minced garlic and continue to simmer while stirring.  Add the ingredients mushrooms through vegetable broth and combine well, stirring often over medium heat until well heated through.

Add two-thirds of the cheese and stir until it's melted.  Add the mushrooms to the rice and broccoli and mix gently.  Season with salt and pepper making sure to taste to get the salt just right.  Transfer to a greased 9 x 13 inch pan (or two 8 x 8 pans) and top with the remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the cheese on top begins to brown lightly.  Let sit 10 minutes and serve.

To read about our experience with growing shiitake mushrooms, go here and read from the bottom post up.

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And We Finally Have...Mushrooms

If you try real hard and search the dusty corners of your long-term memory, do you recall that early last spring we planted installed corked spawned inoculated Shiitake mushrooms?

mushroom logs behind the playhouse (wineberry jungle to the left)

Well, even though we followed our friend's instructions we didn't enjoy any mushrooms last year.  But this is a new year!

We tried again by soaking the inoculated logs in cold water for several days (a few weeks ago), then set them out again in the shade.  The change in temperature did the trick.  About a week later, we had a good handful of mushrooms.

What in the world was I going to do with our first harvest?!  Well, it was pizza night so the grownup pizza was dressed to gills with mushrooms.  And they were delicious.

Occasional soakings throughout the summer should give us multiple and every-increasing-in-size mini harvests of the fungi goodness.  Whoohoo!  It's working. It turns out that what you need most for growing mushrooms (if you're us) is patience:-).

 one of the next batch coming along

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I Keep Forgetting to Tell You...

We grew two shitake mushrooms this year.  Hey, it's two more than we grew last year!  There were a couple things we could have done differently.  When we figure out if doing them works, then I'll tell you about them.

Jamey has slowed up a bit on his wood hoarding.  The pictures below show less than half of it.  We're managing just fine without a truck.  Some we've had delivered, some has come from our own property and some Jamey has gleaned here and there, using the trunk of his 1995 Saturn (making several trips).  We're learning that there is a science to this wood-burning thing and we love everything about it.  We're also learning that most pharmacists think it's weird to be driving a 17 year old car.  And at least one pharmacist doesn't:-).

I don't think I told you how he cleaned out the chimney, did I?  He bought a contraption that attaches to the end of his electric drill.  The drill spins a wire brush around that is sent down the chimney, knocking off the creosote.  Jamey really wanted to know how effective this system was, so what did he do?  He put his smart phone in a ziplock bag, tied it to a string, turned the video camera on and sent it down the chimney before and after.  There were some tense moments as it got a tad stuck around some elbows, but it worked and so does the wire brush spin-y thing.

Jamey burned our dead tomato plants because of the blight that ruined any promise of fall tomatoes.  We're considering buying a tiller for next year.  We really prefer the mulch method, but we could just not stay on top of it this year (you have to mulch super-heavily for it to work well) so they weeds took over big-time.

We picked a bunch of concord grapes from our neighbor's arbor to make jam.  I made a very large batch (which I know is cautioned against when it comes to jams, but I've done it before and really wanted to save time).  Did it work?  Nope.  I ended up canning 25 pints of grape syrup because it didn't set.  I even used the recipe that is supposed to re-set your jam if it doesn't set (it's worked before) and it still didn't work.  We drizzled it on top of waffles and it was delicious.  I figured we wouldn't have to buy maple syrup for YEARS and tried to look on that bright side.  Then, what did that silly jam/syrup do several days later?  It set.  Go figure.

When we were up at my in-laws making applesauce, we picked up 10 big heads of broccoli from an Amish farm stand to freeze.  I love having it on hand and since we're not-so-good terrible at growing it, we're happy to support the Amish, even if we have to ingest some of their pesticides (there was not one worm).

We bought and planted two sweet cherry trees.  When our big black walnut tree came down, it partially landed on our sour cherry tree.  While it still may produce some, we wanted to get a couple more going in the meantime and opted for sweet cherries this time.  I wanted them planted outside my kitchen window at the edge of the sunflower patch so I see their lovely blossoms each spring and holler out at the birds if they get too close to the ripening cherries.  Listen carefully, Marie, and you might be able to hear me.  Marie is our wonderful neighbor.

The pullets and cockerels are almost ready to move in with the grown chickens (although the cockerels likely won't make it in- I'm not sure what we're waiting for, but they're still hanging around).  We moved the tractor down to the sunflower bed to help eat up the gazillions of grass hoppers that moved into that yard this summer.  They also get to enjoy some old sunflower heads lying about.  They'll help us mow down the weeds and will help fertilize for next year.

See my weeds?  If not, just keep looking at the lovely fall pumpkins instead.  One of the kids was preparing to plant grass seed, of all things.

Below is our poplar tree. Jamey and the kids spend hours providing a perfect example of "human dispersal" (we're studying botany this year, remember?).  Jamey kicks a soccer ball up into the tree and the kids try to catch as many "samaras" (a.k.a. "twirlies" or "helicopters") as they can in containers.  Or they just run through them squealing.

Happy fall, lovies. Pin It

Backyard & Garden Video Tour

Happy belated Mother's Day to all my women readers!  Birthing babies is not a requirement for nurturing and mothering others.  I hope your day was the perfect balance between normalcy and over-the-top...at least that's what I enjoyed:-).

This week, instead of photos and captions, I made a video.  For those of you with dial-up or slow computers, I apologize.  For coming off kind of flaky, I apologize as well (all my assumptions of what Jamey had done in the garden were actually correct!).  For the brief gusts of wind that make it hard to hear that I'm showing you our pear and sour cherry tree, I apologize as well.  Without further ado and with a clear conscience, welcome to our backyard....

Just a little update...the baby bunnies did get transferred to the chicken tractor where they made a super-quick escape when no one was looking.  Smart bunnies.

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Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

So now you know.  And even though the HUGE majority of you guessed bees, that majority wasn't actually wrong.  Bees have been something we've been dreaming about for a few years now.  Jamey is currently in the process of building a hive just in case he hears about a swarm that needs a home.  We're hoping that in the next year or so, we'll get ourselves some bees.

 He's building a top bar hive.  Here are the top bars ready to go.

In the meantime, we decided to try our hand at shiitake mushrooms.  The inoculation or spawning of mushrooms is fairly simple, cheap, and takes a minimal time commitment.  Plus, we have a friend who has had great success with mushrooms who is coaching us along.  It seems like the perfect project for us right now when life feels very full but we're eager for a new adventure (of sorts).

 The spawn arrived in the mail and we kept them in the fridge until we were ready for them (just a couple days).

It helps that we love eating mushrooms, too, but rarely buy them because they are expensive.  We're not used to buying a lot of produce, so we get sticker shock when we see those prices. Hats off to those of you who are able to stay within your food budgets without growing a lot of your food!

Now, please understand that we have not been successful with mushrooms YET.  I'm just going to show you what we're doing and you can sit back and watch us and see if we succeed or flop.  Then you can decide if you'd like to follow suit.  I'll post our progress and label these posts so you can easily pull them up and see how we're doing.  For now, I'm just going to give you a very simple explanation of the process and show you what we've done so far.

To start the process of growing shiitake mushrooms, you need to introduce the shiitake fungus to logs (where the mushrooms will grow and be harvested from).  Spawn is the plant body of the fungus that is 'planted' in the logs.  Introducing the two is called inoculation or spawning.

That's the most complicated part of it all right there, so if you can wrap your head around that, you're good to go.

We chose to use "thimbles".  These are thimble-shaped pellets of spawn mixed in sawdust and capped with a thin white foam cap (seen above). 

The spawn must be planted in hardwood logs such as white oak (the favorite choice), other kinds of oak, sugar maple, sweet or black gum, or ironwood.  The kind folks (in the next state over) that we ordered our spawn from said chestnut was fine as well.  We asked because we have a chestnut tree we could easily cut from.

The logs need to be recently cut from healthy, disease-free trees.  You should not use deadfall or damaged trees.  Your logs should be 3 to 4 feet long and 3 to 5 inches in diameter.  Depending on where you live, there are certain times of year that are better than others for cutting, so find out what timing is best for your area if you want to give this a try as well.

Once you have your logs, drill holes into the logs to the specification of your thimbles.  Our order came with precise instructions on the size drill bit, depth of the holes, as well as the desired distance between the holes. Once the holes are ready, insert the thimbles and tap in place.  I found that a phillips head screwdriver was super handy for digging the sawdust out of the drilled holes and then using the handle to pound the thimbles in tightly.

Next, cover the holes with melted beeswax (which smelled divine, by the way).  This keeps the spawn from drying out and keeps organisms from getting in.  Our friend advised us to also put beeswax on the ends of the logs.

Next, we leaned the logs against the side of a shed in the shade.  Now, we wait for a sign that it's time to carry out the last step.  We are to watch for white, fuzzy patches that turn brown around the edges to appear on the ends of the logs OR wait for a period of about a year.

Our friend who grows them locally says she usually only has to wait a few months for the white patches to appear.  At that point, we're to simulate a rapid drop in temperate and a hard rain by submerging the warm (from the weather) logs into cold water for 24 hours.  Then, they are to be set back up in their place and mushrooms should emerge in a few days.  They should be ready to pick 4-6 days later when they are about 70% open (regardless of size).  Once picked, the logs can be induced to produce additional crops by giving them a rest period and then a re-dunking.

We ordered 150 thimbles which we "planted" in 8 logs.  The cost with shipping?  Fifteen dollars ($15) even.  Worth the risk?  I think so:-).

How many mushrooms could we get?  The instructions that came with our spawn say, "Depending on the diameter of the log, up to a dozen crops may be induced every 6-8 weeks during warm weather, over 3 or 4 years."  A dozen crops?  If it works that well for us (or even partially so), you bet I'll be experimenting with different ways to preserve them.

But what I can't wait for is to eat them- sauteed, in stir-frys, raw in salads, on pizza, grilled...however we please.

Let's just hope we have as much luck growing fungi as we do dandelions.  Well.  Maybe not quite that much luck. Pin It