Just a quick post about this fantastic kick starter campaign! We are already big fans of the GroCycle Oyster mushroom kit, we have one growing in our bathroom. They use old coffee grounds to grow Oyster mushrooms directly from, without much hassle at all. Seeing as Oyster mushrooms are generally quite expensive and we have… Continue reading Grow your own Oyster mushrooms! Back GroCycle Kickstarter campaign
Category: Food & Drink
Food n drinkies
Garden cooking, Dutch oven & a brace of conies
We were pondering whether or not we should invest in another brand new and shiny garden BBQ, as the cheap and cheerful ones you pick up from the supermarket or local hardware store never last for long.
This year I wanted to scrimp and save by creating our own and keeping it very frugal, for a while we were playing with the idea to use an old metal drum or maybe a full brick BBQ, as we had plenty of left over bricks. Decisions decisions….
From garden to plate in less than 15 mins
Ahh home grown fresh asparagus! They taste so much better than what you buy in the supermarket and we are not just saying that, they are sweeter, juicier and have a much stronger flavour.
Though neither Sherrie nor I have ever used an asparagus spear as a soldier substitute when dipping into boiled eggs, what were we missing!? They were absolutely yummy, though after a great debate whilst devouring our prey, we decided the next set of spears (ready in a week or two) will get the hollandaise treatment!
Reading Beer festival food & frivolities
Every year we venture down to Reading’s Beer Festival, looking forward to sampling a little of everything we can manage to fit into our stomachs (especially the pies!). Well it used to be the hog roast, but it was a little disappointing last year, so now it’s the wild boar and mushroom pies! Yummy!
In the previous years I have tried some very tasty beers, ales and mead’s, though I am not really a cider fan. Probably since those dreaded teenage years of getting ridiculously drunk on white lighting & TNT and now the smell of any cider makes me want to hurl.
Interesting..Making wild nettles beer!
Oooh, this sounds interesting! making beer from wild stinging nettles. You could end up being stung all over if you are not careful haha! I think i would need plenty of vinegar to hand and doc leaves.
I am quite curious to what it might taste like, we could either wait for them to force their way into our garden from under the fence or alternatively go on the hunt.
Keeping our mushrooms fresh
Take mushrooms for example, refrigeration is the best way right? Well yes, but leaving the plastic film over them causes them to go off quicker and become slimy due to the build-up of moisture. Piercing several holes in the plastic will increase their life by a couple of days, but no more than the general 4-5 days life span. However, there is in addition to refrigeration a very simple trick to extend the life of your mushrooms well beyond the ‘best before’ date. Now this might be common knowledge, but we had never heard of it before…
Brewing our own light beer
I have been keen to learn how to make my own beer and for Christmas my sister bought me a wheat beer microbreweries kit. I know it’s a kit with the premade syrup already provided, so the process is much easier than preparing the hops. But I figure, you have to start somewhere just with learning the basic principles how to “home brew” and this kit just gets the ball rolling.
My efforts most likely will not be as tasty as the beer you buy from the shops, but hopefully this will get better with practice, plus the amount of beer you get for the money you spend, is so much better ROI for only a little effort.