Mushroom Growing

It fascinates me to watch the full cycle of development of food that I eat. This is one reason why I decided to grow my own mushrooms. Besides, they also taste a lot better than the ones at the grocery store.

So far I’ve done 3 kits, all from Pulpit Rock, and have had pretty good results. My first two kits were a portabella and shiitake. The photos below are of the portabella and shiitake kits.

Both did produce quite a few mushrooms. The shiitake kit produced over 3 lbs and the ports I didn’t really keep track of. Both kits come in their own boxes that are also used as the “planters” and humidity tents which are plastic bags, with holes in them, to place on top of the boxes. After setting them up I also spray them with distilled water every other day.

The shiitake comes with sawdust filled with spores and you activate by soaking it in water and a little salt for about an hour, you then place the spore filled sawdust lump on a plastic dish and then the box that it came in. In just of few days I had my first shiitake. I then resoaked the “log” for more shiitakes. I’ve decided for my next shiitake kit to go with another company because I want to attempt to grow them on a real log, supposedly they will taste different.

I just recently purchased another portabella kit. Here are the photos of how to start it and its fruiting after 11 days. The first photo is the box that it comes and grows in, the second photo is of the compost

Above is the Peat moss and lime, the casing, which comes in a separate bag on top of the compost. You have to mix the casing with water until it is barely damp. The casing is then spread evenly on top of the compost and the box is shut for 7 days in a dark place that is about 70 degrees. After that the mycelium is formed.

The next photos are the development up to day 14.

Honey Bee Cookies

Sugar, flour, and eggs always make’s a great cookie!

This cookie recipe comes from the ABC’s of Baking obtained when collected enough Gold Medal PCUs when I was a wee little kid. It really is a good cookbook but it is more geared towards children cooking with their parents. That being said I modified the honey bee cookies by using cardamom, instead of cinnamon, and used salt honey from Colorado to give it a more sophisticated taste. I stirred the butter, egg, brown sugar, and honey together on my stove top with a double boiler.

After it was mixed I added the salt, baking soda, cardamom, and flour to form the dough and then refrigerated it to give the dough a soft chewy texture after baking.

On to the cookie sheet, and then the finished product.

Experiments in Baking !

Everyone wants to be a little healthier, so I kind of thought a great place to start would be altering a cookie recipe. Snicker doodles!

My starting point of health in this recipe is less sugar, and my way to accomplish this is by using agave nectar. Agave nectar is from the tequila plant and really is not less caloric than sugar but is 2 times sweeter than sugar. Due to the extra sweetness you only use half the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. As an FYI point when you buy agave nectar there are usually two kinds, lighter and darker. Lighter is used in drinks, usually, and the darker is used in baking. I have used the lighter to make lemonade, makes it syrupy, and the darker in this snicker doodle recipe.

I have been slowly modifying the sugar content in this recipe and right now I am at about a half-cup of sugar and a half-cup of agave nectar, not including the cinnamon sugar mix on top. The texture is slightly different but still pretty sugary, also the first bite might taste different but after that you really can’t tell.

Below are pictures of the dough, the raw cookies and the finished cookies !

Sun tea

I love tea.
I especially love it when I can leave it for a few hours and come back later to discover that the sun has made some lovely tea for me. Yeahhh sun tea, or solar tea as my glass jar says.




The other day I was at my local market and found these spice bags that I am now using for loose leaf tea in my sun tea jar. Usually I just use bag tea, but using loose leaf tea adds so many more dimensions. As of now I am just doing a loose leaf black tea with mango and calendula, however I am excited about the endless possibilities of mixing loose leaf teas being brewed by the sun !