We had many requests to share our soup recipe, so here it is! 
This soup base is so simple and versatile you can use it with any kind of mushrooms. We first used this recipe years ago for a Hen of the Woods or Maitake mushroom, but soon found we can really use it for any of our favorite mushrooms and it turns out just as delicious!  You can even use vegan cream and butter to make it 100% vegan friendly. It is a very rich soup so we recommend pairing it with your favorite bread or crackers.  Get really wild and try it in a bread bowl.. it will blow your mind!  I won't bore you with our life story of foraging and growing mushrooms just to get to the recipe..  We hope you enjoy it as much as we do and if you make it, be sure to take photos and tag us! We love to see our customer friends experimenting with mushroom dishes! 
Cream of Mushroom Soup
4-6 cups Black Pearl King Oyster (or any) Mushroom clean and chopped ( even mix it up with a variety)
4 tbsp. butter (or vegan butter)
32 oz. Chicken, beef or vegetable stock (canned or homemade)
1-2 cups of heavy cream (or vegan cream) I use a generous 2 cups
1/4 cup cold water 
1/4 cup corn starch or equivalent xanthan gum for thickening. 
 Sauté the chopped mushrooms in half the butter for 15 minutes (hardier mushrooms like Hen will take 20-30 minutes). In a large pot, combine the stock, cream and remaining butter. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. When the mushrooms are done, take 1/4 of the cooked mushrooms and puree with an immersion blender or food processor until fine.  Add all the mushrooms and the puree to the stock and cream mixture and bring to a boil.  Mix together cold water and cornstarch until smooth. Slowly add to the boiling soup, stirring constantly until thick.  You can make more cornstarch and cold water mixture if needed to reach desired thickness. 
Add salt and pepper to taste (personally we don't feel like it needs much or really any at all!) 
Base recipe serves 2-4 people. We usually double it because everyone wants seconds! 

Welcome Back!! It's another grand mushroom monday, and we are highlighting 2 of our summer oyster strains, the Golden Oyster and Florida Oyster!  I promise not to bore you with the history of why we love this dish and what made me adapt it to our cultivated mushrooms over some of our favorite wild strains. What I will tell you is that we love this dish for 3 reasons, 1 it has mushrooms!(obvi!) 2, it's super simple and easy to make, and lastly, it's delicious and everyone enjoys it, even my not so food adventurous 14 yr old. 

Let's get to it!  First we need to gather our ingredients, if you're really adventurous in the kitchen you can even make your own fresh tortellini, right now I just don't have that planned so we used our favorite spinach and ricotta cheese tortellini, chicken broth, dry sherry, mushrooms and fresh parsley to garnish.  Prepare the tortellini as the packaging directs, while that is cooking start to boil your broth, pull mushrooms apart into roughly 1 inch pieces. When the broth comes to a full boil, add sherry and mushrooms. Simmer for 10 minutes, add strained tortellini and simmer an additional 2 to 3 minutes.  Serve with a garnish of chopped parsley, and enjoy!  That's it! This dish is super simple, healthy and takes less than 30 minutes to make. 
While this dish is vegan friendly it is not gluten free, so we tried an additional option of using Vermicelli noodles  with the broth and mushrooms, it was just as delicious and GF!  If you like a little kick add a few drops of siracha to turn up the heat. 

Oyster Medley Tortellini
12 oz. fresh tortellini or 6 oz. dried (or 1 package Vermicelli noodles for GF) 
6 cups chicken broth
5 tbsp. dry sherry (cream works for a sweet/savory twist)
2 cups fresh oyster mushrooms (Golden and Florida recommended)
chopped fresh parsley to garnish. 

    We get really excited about mushroom mondays around here! While we do maintain a generally omnivorous diet we do try to substitute a meat course once a week with a mushroom protein supplement, we have lovingly turned the idea into mushroom monday (you'll see this #mushroommonday hashtag pop up on our instagram each week!). This week we are still experimenting with the Lion's Mane, as it's a new variety to us, not only as growers, but also for our menu. 
      I'm not going to tell you some crazy story or bore you with facts when I know you really just want to know how to cook these crazy things! I will tell you, that my main goal is to find recipes that anyone can follow and enjoy a variety of mushrooms. So let's get into the real reason we are here, these tasty clouds of nourishment. 
    Think of Lion's mane like a seafood, or white fish replacement, or to compliment these items. I know it seems like there is a trend of sautéing or frying things here, and we will get outside of that but right now this is where our experimentation is at, keeping simplicity in mind.  For this dish, we tore the Lion's Mane into roughly 1 inch (bite size) pieces, we tried larger clusters but found this gave the best ratio of coating to mushroom.  Our liquid base is a 50/50 mayo to almond milk blend. If you're doing a small batch a tablespoon of each works great, and it's easy to adjust up if you're making a larger batch. For our dry coating we used Louisiana New Orleans Fish Fry  "breading" mix.  Just cover the bottom of the bowl or dish about a half inch to start, you can always add more as needed.  If you're not a fan of spicy flavors any beer batter or fish fry batter would also work great. We just love a little kick, and the lemon flavor in this mix really makes the flavors pop. Before you start coating your mushrooms, preheat your pan or skillet with an oil of your choosing, we prefer coconut or olive oil for the added health benefits as well as flavors.  Cover the bottom of the pan just about 1/8th of an inch deep.  Bring to a medium heat while you start coating your mushrooms.  We do this part in stages, you don't want to over fill the pan to the point that the oil cools too fast and the mushrooms absorb the oil. Do a water drop test to make sure your pan is nice and hot. Drop batches of prepared mushrooms into the hot pan, we used a #7 cast iron skillet and did about 10 to 12 pieces in a batch.  Cook approximately 1 min on each side, or until a nice golden brown.  Remove from pan and rest on a towel or surface to remove leftover oil.   Enjoy! 
        These little "fish" bites are so good that if I didn't know what I was cooking, you would not have convinced me these were mushrooms. They are absolutely delicious and would pair well with any of your favorite seafood sides.  I'd even go as far to say these would be amazing with a good southern dirty rice or grits.  The other reason we love this recipe is that the Fish fry "breading" is corn based, so it's also gluten free! We love any dish that can cross the boundaries of many eating lifestyles!!  
Let's break it down quick. 
Ingredients:
1 pint to 1 pound of Lion's Mane mushrooms (pulled apart)
1 tbsp. Almond milk (or your favorite milk substitute)
1 tbsp. Mayo (vegan or non)
1/2 cup Fish fry breading  
1/4-1/2 cup cooking oil (olive oil or coconut oil recommended) 
(adjust amounts as needed per amount of mushrooms) 

Recently we added a new variety to our available mushrooms, a somewhat common gourmet and also medicinal mushroom. Lion's mane is in the tooth fungus family, it's pom pom looking structure is made of soft tooth like "spines". As with every new mushroom we like to sample them so that we can offer a suggested flavor profile to compliment them well. 
Today we had a nice batch of Lion's Mane ready to enjoy, we cleaned and separated the "puffs" into small even pieces we could sauté.  In a simple clarified butter, lightly tossed in our favorite Louisiana Cajun seasoning, we cooked them for 4 to 5 minutes each side on a hot pan. Just enough to crisp the edges.  For such a simple dish it did not disappoint!  I nearly had to fight George to get a few pieces myself. It was both delicious and satisfying, with a lobster like flavor but melt in your mouth crab consistency. I can see why so many vegans love this mushroom as a seafood substitute!  This is another mushroom that will become a staple product and regular on our family menu. If you have tried Lion's mane and have a favorite recipe to try please feel free to share it! If you try this recipe let us know how it goes!!  Check back often for other mushroom recipes and more!  Enjoy! 

This week we will feature our new favorite, the Pink Oyster mushroom. 
The Pink oyster, Pleutorus Djamor, is a tropical strain of oyster mushroom known for it's vibrant pink color and delightful almost shrimp-like flavor.  Even though we have spent many many years harvesting and enjoying local wild varieties, this one is new to us. I quickly searched the interwebs for some highly rated recipes and continued to come across a variety of tempura fried pink oysters. All of the recipes had a base tempura batter with their own added herbs, some with chopped chives, others cilantro.  Use what you like!  We did a simple base tempura batter with just some salt and pepper, as this was the first time trying the pink oyster we did not want to overtake the natural flavors with a ton of herbs. Batter dip, and fry for 3 to 4 minutes or until golden brown.  We did however make a soy based dipping sauce I found on www.fullofplants.com which I shared below.  This will definitely become a dish we make often, and I'm just as excited to try some keto friendly versions as well!   Please feel free to comment and let us know if you try this recipe, or if you have a favorite Pink Oyster recipe you think we might enjoy! 
​Dipping Sauce

• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1/2 small chili finely chopped (optional)