Mushrooms and Chooks.

A couple of months ago we went to a terrific mushroom growing workshop with Urban Kulture (hate the spelling!) and Mr ATMT has been turning out some spectacular harvests since. These are oysters and king oysters with some up coming pink oysters.

I do love mushrooms but find that some of these exotic types remind me a bit of offal and I get a bit ‘gaggy’ when trying to eat them. This method of cooking them seemed to eliminate my issues with that.  Stock, mushroom stock. Cannot ever have enough of this liquid gold! Some of the really mature mushies went into a pot with some carrot, onion, celery, star anise, peppercorns and ginger. Slowly simmered for a couple of hours then,

 the liquid was strained off, mushrooms sliced and fried off with some butter, garlic and red capsicum.

I cannot work out what on earth the story is with capsicum this season! This was freshly picked this afternoon and there are still a few left on the plants. Chilli and boy choy were also picked at same time.

 To construct the risotto I (well, I got Mr ATMT to) fried off the mushrooms with some butter and olive oil, added the arborio rice to cook until centre of was transparent then slowly started adding the mushroom stock we’d made earlier. After several cycles of adding mushroom stock, stir, let absorb, repeat, I added some white wine and some champagne vinegar,  then seasoned the mixture. I’m a bit if fan of adding peas to risotto so that was my mandatory add, hoping to ward off any fear of eating dead mans fingers about the meaty shrooms.

Before serving I stirred through some butter, fresh thyme and parsley, parmesan and lemon zest. Conclusion-delicious, I feel a bit brave that I did something out of my comfort zone but I’d be happy to just settle with mushroom stock alone.

Preparing for some new arrivals.

We are getting 4 new chooks tomorrow, after putting off adding to the flock (of 1) because we didn’t want to rock the boat with poor, 7 year old Rene, enough is enough. We need more cluckiness going on and we need a more efficient food waste elimination method than just the compost and one chook. I sent the afternoon preparing the chook shed with a clean out, some lime dusted around, fresh bedding in the nesting boxes, and a good old clean out.

Looks and feel much better. Do you think chooks like clean sheets like we do? Love the gold of that oak tree behind.

I hope Rene, copes all right with the new arrivals, she really is a delightful little companion  to have around.

A barrow full of rich nutrient from the chook house clean out going straight onto the veggie patch. This load will be used for top dressing my garlic beds and the brassicas in the bed at the rear.

Fingers crossed out new chooks will settle in and Rene will cope with the onslaught!