shitake mushrooms

A few weeks ago we bought a shitake mushroom kit at the Pawtucket farmers market.It is a manufactured log infused with spore.You soak it and keep it in the basement and keep it moist and within 10 days you have mushrooms.I have done real logs outdoors but this is my first indoor.I had left it in a bag for a few weeks before I got around to soaking it and it started sprouting on its own.I soaked it placed it on a tray with a plastic greenhouse top.AGWAY had ones about 8-10 inches high.It started growing right away.Here is our first harvest I will pick the large and let the small keep growing.The advantage of indoor is you see it and no bugs.We will use the first ones in quesadillas tonight.

Hearth cooking and cheese making

A few weeks ago we attended a Hearth cooking class at Woody Hill B&B in Westerly RI.What a great time we had.There were 8 students and we all took responsibility for specific dishes.Mine was Martha Washingtons spice cake in the dutch oven.I tend to burn whatever I am baking in the dutch oven.It came out great and I was able to replicate it at home in the fireplace as you can see in my photo.There were no burned spots.We also cooked a pork roast,butternut squash soup,cornbread,corn oysters,pear chutney,cranberry relish,Bread pudding.All this was cooked on the hearth,reflector oven(in front of hearth,beehive oven and dutch oven.It was a great night,none of us knew each other so it was nice to meet new people also.Ellen our host was great.I also have made my second attempt at cheddar cheese this week.We will keep our fingers crossed.When you make cheddar cheese you have whey left over.I made ricotta out of the whey and then made a dish I found in Edible Rhody.Gnudi in a lemon thyme sauce.Very similar to gnocci but mostly ricotta only a little flour and you roll into balls instead of off a fork to make ridges.It was a great recipe we really enjoyed it.