Stuffed mushrooms

[ctom]

8 ounce box of largish button mushrooms, stems removed but saved for another dish.
8 ounces fresh spinach leaves
a small shallot, finely chopped
a small clove of garlic
bread crumbs
coarse grated parmessan cheese
butter

Chop the spinach and clove of garlic and shallot together and saute lightly in a pan with melted butter. You do not want to saute this until it is mush, just a light cook is all. Fill the mushroom caps with the spinach mixture and place filled side up in an 8" X 8" cake pan that has been sprayed with a shot of PAM .

Using the same saute pan, melt butter and bread crumbs together. You need enough butter to really coat the crumbs, but you don't want it running all over. When the crumbs are well coated, add about 1/4 cup of the cheese and remove from heat. Spread the crumb/cheese mixture over the spinach mixture in the mushrooms and then put under a broiler with the rack about 10" below the burner and the broiler setting set on low. Brown the crumb mixture well, but not black.

These go with any meat but are maybe at their best with a good steak. I like them any time and with any meat. Very, very infrequently we'll have a couple left over in the fridge and those get eaten cold by moi first thing in the morning.

[Jason]

I will be trying this recipe asap. Sounds awesome!

Anyone have access to morel mushrooms?

[ctom]

Morels are out of season here....only a spring thing.

I grow my own shitaki's on oak logs in the back yard. I've had a few that have weighed as much as a pound and a half. And if you haven't eaten a shitaki, you are seriously missing out on a delight.

[andrewlamberson]

I trade Walleye fillets for morel mushrooms in the spring with my next door neighbor. It was a good spring for both this year!

[andrewlamberson]

Morels are out of season here....only a spring thing.

I grow my own shitaki's on oak logs in the back yard. I've had a few that have weighed as much as a pound and a half. And if you haven't eaten a shitaki, you are seriously missing out on a delight.

Would this be a good place to get started doing that? I LOVE mushrooms...but for some reason never though to grow them myself.

http://www.oystercreekmushroom.com/shiitakekit.html

[Justin9j]

Love morel mushrooms.  Not a good season here in southern Indiana for them this year.    Andy I may have to find someone to trade fish for mushrooms next spring. Very good idea.

[ctom]

I have no experience with this company, Andy. I get everything I need to grow them from  www.fieldforest.net. Its a Wisconsin company based in Peshtigo. 1-715-582-4997 if you want to call for a printed catalog. Fieldforest has several varieties of shitakis, some engineered for the northern climate like we live in. I have logs pegged with two strains right now. If you look at the catalog the wr46 and the Miss Happiness strains are what I have pegged right now and love the results they give.

You'll want to have about ten 30" X4" diameter OAK logs freshly cut from living oak on hand. I get the spawn plugs and have been happy with the results they give. I've had my logs working for four years now and get shitakis in the spring and again in the fall. Occasionally I'll find a mushroom or two during summer if the weather has been wet.

Fresh Shitaki mushrooms sell for between $12.00 and $20.00 per pound around here at farmer's markets. The spawn plugs cost $35.00 for 750 pieces, hence the need for 10 logs. The logs will start producing about a year from the date you put the plugs in, but maybe earlier if you play things right. I set the spawn plugs in early fall and have had some mushrooms from them in the spring, but the next fall you'll be falling over mushrooms and the next 4 to 5 years will be that way spring and fall.

The fall flush of mushrooms can yield some big caps. BIG caps. 10" across type big caps. Sliced 1/4" thick and sauted in butter these mushrooms are like eating a steak with a flavor of incredible quality.

[andrewlamberson]

Would a kit like this get me started???

http://www.fieldforest.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_17_27&products_id=85

or this for 3 season??

http://www.fieldforest.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_17_27&products_id=90

I have deer problems in my backyard ...will I need to protect the mushrooms?

[ctom]

Deer don't seem to bother the logs, but then I live smack in the middle of Rochester. Still, we have deer that follow the river and creek behind us. They eat the garden and Carole's tulips in the spring but they haven't munched on mushies.

The kits you mention are a nice size to get started, you just won't get the production or longevity found in using real logs. The kits are way less work at the beginning.....try drilling a 5/16 inch hole every three inches on an entire four inch log until you have the 750 holes needed to pound the pegs spawn in place. The starter kits are also an excellent way to try other kinds of mushrooms without having to commit any real yard space to logs of other forms of large propegation mediums.

I put down some wood mulch in our raspberry bed a couple years ago and spread some loose spawn in sawdust on the dirt first. I still get a flush of mushrooms from that. They are the portabellas and white button mushrooms.

Shitakis are a stud mushroom on the table and will dry beautifully in a dehydrator. The person who got me going on growing my own dries some of his and then runs them thru a blender to make a powder out of them and uses that to coat fish destined for the fry pan. I can't make myself do that to a mushroom thats as good as a shitaki but it just goes to how many ways they can be used. On the other hand with the fish coating, they are a renewable resource so nothing is really wasted except the time waiting for more to bloom.

But by all means, if you want to give these mushroom a shot in the back yard, the starter kit is the way to fly and they put some dandy food on the table for a couple/three years at a very reasonable price. The work is all done....you just water the medium if it gets dry....Ma Nature does the rest.