What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Here at Haus Kuechenmeister, we'll be eating yummy tapas and sampling tasty cocktails with Tiffany's sister, Stargirl. Hope your New Year's Eve is equally agreeable. :)

Growing Mushrooms

My family is a bit mushroom obsessed. My brother, especially. He hikes in the woods searching for delicious mushrooms. He started this insanity. My mom has harvested puffball mushrooms from her front yard to sauté them in a stir fry. My dad chopped down a tree for logs to grow shiitakes.

While looking around at The Fresh Market a couple of weeks ago, we stumbled across this oyster mushroom growing kit from Back to the Roots. Mike sounded like a kid in a toy store when he said, "Oooh! Can I get this!?!"

We've been growing shiitakes out of logs on the side of the house. Those took a lot of work to get started (did you see that bit above about chopping down a tree?) and has taken months to see a single mushroom. To grow oyster mushrooms out of a little box sounded a whole lot easier. Who was I to say no?

The mushrooms grew so fast, it was crazy! This was taken a few days ago. We have already harvested the mushrooms and feasted on them! In fact, he harvested the mushrooms this morning and I wasn't around to get a good photo of the final product. I think I took a few shots of more fully grown mushrooms on film, so we'll have to wait and see. 

Just saw this on their website. We didn't know about the program in time, but if you get the mushrooms, you can take advantage of this!

OUR NEW PROGRAM: Post a picture with your kit fully grown on our facebook page and we'll send you a free replacement bag or donate a kit to an elementary classroom of your choice to support youth sustainability education! Join the Movement!

Mike says it's not really worth paying $20 for the kit just to grow $6-$12 worth of oyster mushrooms, but Mike is hoping to reuse the selum (sp? and also I think that means mushroom organism) to hopefully grow more. We'll have to consult our mushroom expert (aka my brother).

Looking for a delicious dish to make with your mushrooms? We're awfully fond of Wild Mushroom Crostini.

Homemade Pizza

Lately, Mike has been in the search for the perfect pizza. Tonight's dinner was his latest attempt. Though, I suppose I shouldn't really say "attempt" because each try has been deliciously successful.

 

Mike made tonight's garlic-y crust from scratch. The crust smelled super garlic-y before I was cooked but tasted perfect. I'd tell you more details, but he's playing MW3 and a good wife doesn't interrupt that. ;)

The pizza was topped with: Publix shredded mozzarella, a red onion, green peppers from the Farmer's Market (that we froze after we bought them and pulled out of the freezer for the pizza), a locally & hydroponically grown tomato that was picked this morning, and oyster mushrooms that Mike grew out of a box.

Yes, it was delicious. 

For those of you who might be curious, Mike washed his down is Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale while I had Twomey sauvignon blanc.

By the way, thanks for stopping by the inaugural post of The Kuechen Blog.