Shitaki Mushrooms

Hopefully this won't be my last blog post, but if it is then you can probably blame the mushrooms!

Whilst on occasions I might like living dangerously I'm not stupid enough to go harvesting my own wild mushrooms. Picking wild mushrooms when you don't know what you are doing is analogous to playing Russian roulette and my life doesn't need that kind of stress. I do, however, like mushrooms and I do like trying different varieties. I also quite like growing plants that I can eat (chillies being my favorite) so the idea of growing my own mushrooms was too good to pass up. Bryony spotted that one of the plant catalogues she was ordering from sold kits for growing mushrooms so we decided to give them a go.

We currently have three kits on the go (for Button, Oyster and Shitaki) but the first to fruit are the Shitaki Mushrooms. Last night I cooked Woodpigeon pasta which involves wild mushrooms and while I used the jar I had already bought I chopped up three home grown Shitaki mushrooms and used them as well. The taste of the mushrooms was excellent and 24 hours later we are both still alive so I call that a successful experiment. Let's just hope the other kits turn out to be as good.