Oyster Mushroom Chowder

AMAZING!!! Enough said...

2T butter
1C onion diced
1C oyster mushroom chopped
2 garlic cloves

Melt butter in soup pot, add onion and garlic - cook for 5 - add mushrooms and cook some more.  Remove from soup pot.

5 potatoes diced
2T butter
1T salt

Melt butter and add potatoes and salt to soup pot.  Cover with lid and stir often - cook potatoes until tender.

2C milk

Add milk and bring to a slow boil, make sure you stir often.  Remove from heat.

2 cup milk
2 egg yolks

In a separate container mix 2 more cups of milk and 2 egg yolks.  Slowly add this to the potato/milk mixture already in the pot.  Keep mixing and make sure it is off the burner to keep the egg yolks from cooking.  Once incorporated to rest of soup place back on the heat.  Add the mushroom/onion mix.

2t thyme
pepper to taste
salt if anymore is needed
hot sauce to taste

Add seasonings and bring up heat to eating temperature.  Serve immediately.  Garnish with paprika.


We ate this incredible chowder with cheddar cheese melted on flatbread.  Sorry for being repetitive but...

AMAZING!!!

Chicken Coop Improvements

New and improved nesting boxes at work!

After a month of having daily Easter egg hunts, looking for where the chickens were laying their eggs, I decided it was time to improve the nesting boxes in the mobile coop.  I knew they were lacking and in need of improvements from the beginning, but like everything...there were so many other things that were more important, necessary, or fun than figuring out what to do.  I had two issues to resolve as far as I could tell.  The first was the nesting boxes were too big.  This was resolved by going from two boxes to three.  I think that alone was the best improvement.  And second was the issue of bedding material.  I was using pine shaving shavings which worked well when they were young and sleeping/pooping in the boxes.  But I figured it was time for some straw.  Once I made the boxes smaller and added the straw, the eggs just started pouring in!  I get between 7 to 11 a day now.  Woohoo!!!!

Beautiful sea grass basket Montana gave me for my birthday!

Mini Cooper - she lays the gorgeous green egg pictured above

More Mushrooms! October 2012

Mushrooms are an amazing thing.  One minute there is nothing and "poof" the next you almost missed the harvest! We have been getting these awesome sporadic mushroom harvests.  A few weeks ago, I walked to the back side of the woods to the creek where we have our 2nd set of inoculated logs to see if there was any action.  Lo and behold and to my great excitement there was...

SHITAKES!!!

Shitakes from the logs located in the woods

 So in classic permaculture fashion we decided to do things the "lazy way".  A lot of people spend time dunking their logs in bath tubs and bins, hitting the ends of the logs with sledgehammers, and a whole host of other business.  Not Chris and I.  We got all excited about having our own mushrooms because we are too chicken to wild harvest (me more than Chris).  Last year for my birthday I asked for mushroom logs and in September we set out to make that happen.  We harvested some trees downed by Hurricane Irene (can't remember if that is the correct hurricane name - when you get old it all seems to run together) and made a garden bed out of some of them.  The south side of the bed we inoculated the logs with shitakes and oysters.  We also downed an oak tree in the woods and dragged it to the creek and inoculated those with shitakes.  We thought the garden logs would have access to water because we would be watering the garden that the bed was holding.  Makes sense, right?  It is also high and dry, roasting in the sunshine in the summer.  Not exactly what one would think of as a great mushroom spot.  The one in the woods is exactly what I would imagine a mushroom spot to look like.  I thought...this is perfect and I can use the creek water to water the logs.  Hahahahaha!  I hardly ever made it back there to even look at the logs much less water them.  And the garden ones didn't fair any better due to the fact that we hardly ever watered the garden.  We really do suck at these things!  So basically, the mushrooms just did whatever they could with exactly where they got inoculated.  Amazingly, we are getting mushrooms! Either this is idiot proof or we could have a crap load of mushrooms if we really tried!

Oyster mushrooms from today!

So the front garden logs produced some more oyster mushrooms today.  They are gorgeously beautiful!  I have been making the most amazing meals with all of them.  Here is one of my most favorite soups to date...

cut up bacon - uncooked

garlic cloves - minced

diced onion

Shitake - sliver sliced

kale - sliver sliced

chicken broth

water

lemon juice

cooked rice

cayenne pepper

garlic powder

salt to taste

Directions: In a soup pot cook bacon, onion and garlic together.  Before bacon is completely cooked add the mushrooms.  Cook until bacon is cooked through.  Add kale and cook for 5 minutes (do not overcook kale, beautiful green color and holds its shape).  Whatever broth you have you match with water.  I had 4 cups broth and added 4 cups water.  Add lemon juice and cooked rice. Add cayenne, garlic powder and salt to taste. Serve when it reaches adequate temperature.

I am notorious for not measuring ingredients.  I am the worst cook in that I can't hardly ever reproduce anything but I am the best cook in that I use things creatively by combining what I have available rather than shopping by a recipe list.  So you won't find amounts with my recipes usually because it is what's in it that counts and can usually be very flexible.  If you like mushrooms then load up on mushrooms. If greens are your thing then have at it.  If you don't have much then skimp on the broth and water and just make less soup.  That is the beauty of soup...it is hard to mess up.

Another favorite recipe of mine is a mushroom/kale open faced sandwich...

Olive oil/butter

garlic cloves

mushroom

kale

salt

spread - mayonnaise, garlic, basil, worcestershire sauce mixed together

flatbread

Directions: Melt butter and olive oil together in skillet.  Add garlic and sliver cut mushrooms.  Saute mushrooms.  Push mushrooms to the edge of the skillet.  Add kale (I cut the leaves into strips - like cole slaw), more olive oil and some salt.  Let kale get that beautiful rich green color but retains it's structure.  Mix mushrooms and kale together.  Add some chopped garlic and basil to some mayonnaise.  Add a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and mix it all together.  Spread mayo mix on top of warm flatbread.  Lay the mushroom/kale mix on top of the bread.  And prepare for the taste bud happy dance!

Okay, can you tell I'm hungry???

Yeah for the bees - Eleagnus is in bloom!



Far view of the beehives Fall 2012

In the Spring of 2012, Chris bought three beehives (3 nucs - 1 with a queen, 2 without) and we set them up on the north side of the property facing the southern sun.  It is now fall and the one with the queen is doing great, one of the nucs is doing okay and one did not make it. 

The right one did not make it. 

Some of the struggles we have had is how much to intervene.  Chris and I want really strong bees and we want really strong bees to make more strong bees.  We have seen a lot of die off that appears to be pesticide poisoning and Chris started off giving them sugar water and then decided that even that would be too much intervention.  We have no intentions of harvesting honey from any hive unless we are sure they can make it so probably we will look spring to see if there is any to spare.  But it is nerve racking to see the summer blooms die and having no nectar for bees to forage.  Until the other day.  The air was thick with a flowery sweet scent and I walked over to the Eleagnus run that the park planted in front of our yard across the drive.  It was in full bloom and thick with honey bees. There is almost a mile of this stuff along our drive. Most people are scared of the invasiveness of the Eleagnus but from our point of view....YIPEE!



Picture of scale of Eleagnus - it runs along the drive for almost a mile

Honey bee on the Eleagnus










Jeruselum artichokes are blooming

September 10, 2012

Apollo the chicken god

Can you believe that this chick... 

Is now this rooster?





Apollo (started off as Iris before she became a he) is a gorgeous Silver Pencil Rock Cockrel.  This has to be the luckiest rooster on the planet.  So when we got our 12 chicks on Easter, we planned on harvesting all but one rooster.  We figured we would like one more than all the rest and that lucky rooster would be spared to take care of the remaining females.  Not only did Apollo win, but he was the ONLY rooster!  He now has a harem of 11 beautiful young hens (only 1 he is related to in any way) to protect and serve - and serve - and serve - and serve!  He is a chicken god.  You can't see it in the picture very well but he has enormous feet.  And he is a really nice bird.  Win for everyone indeed.



Milkweed or Dogbane?...that is the question!

So the catepillar has been identified as the tiger moth catepillar which feeds mostly on milkweed or dogbane.  Milkweed = good, Dogbane = bad.  I'm leaning towards milkweed on this one but I would have to return to the patch and break the stem to see if it is hollow (milkweed) or filled with milky white creamy stuff (dogbane) to be sure.  If it is milkweed...I read it is delightful!