Once a Mushroom Hunter, Always a Mushroom Hunter

One beautiful shaggy mane

It had been over a year since the last time I went out hunting for wild mushrooms. I often think about those delicious morels.  I was walking around Lake Merritt today with the pooches, and suddenly I saw a fresh full size shaggy mane sticking out of the grass. Coprinus comatus, commonly known as shaggy mane or ink cap, is one of the wild mushrooms that I am very familiar with. It is very distinctive with the scales on its cap. This mushroom is unusual because it will turn black and dissolve itself in a matter of hours after being picked or depositing spores.  Another sure way to identify the mushroom is to cut it in half as the photo below. The cross section of shaggy mane has a unique kite line. It's hard to see from the photo below, but I have a better photo I took years ago in my wild mushroom photo album.

The biggest one started to turn black

I walked through the grass over to the shaggy mane and found 3 more smaller ones next to the big one. I took a photo before plucking all of them off the ground. I didn't have anything to put them in, and suddenly I remembered that I had doggy bags in my pocket. Perfect!

After taking them home, I sautéed them in some olive oil with some baby spinach then sprinkled some gorgonzola cheese on top. It was delicious!  We are supposed to have more rain. I can't wait to find more presents like this while out walking!

Lékué Egg Cooker

Last week one of my new colleagues gave me a set of Lékué egg cookers as a holiday gift.  They are just the cutest things. If you have been following my blog, you know that I love mushrooms and anything mushroom shaped. I have only been at my new job since end of August this year, so I was just amazed how she picked this gift for me.

Today I finally got the time to try it out. I brushed inside of the cooker with olive oil and lined it with some baby spinach. I put a couple grilled shishito peppers in there just because I grilled a bunch last night. Now about these shishito peppers, according to Wikipedia, about one of ten peppers is spicy. Last night I had them for the first time, and the first one I ate set my face on fire. I was very surprised and wasn't sure if I could eat another one.  Fortunately, the next 2 peppers weren't as spicy, but I would say one out of five is spicy for the batch of peppers I got. They are very good though, so I couldn't stop eating them. I think my tolerance for hot peppers just went up a notch last night.

I sprinkled a little salt and pepper and put the lid back on. It was cooked in microwave for about 50 seconds, then I heard it popped. I guess the egg popped.  Luckily it didn't make an explosive mess in there because it had a lid.  The egg was fully cooked after 50 seconds.  Next time I will try 40 seconds for a softer egg. This is a great way to cook an egg with other vegetables or meats. I am going to pick up some gorgonzola cheese and mushrooms later for more experiments.

Harvesting Spinach

I saved some pathetic looking spinach seedlings from the greenhouse on Merritt College campus in January this year. There were 18 seedlings packed into a 6-cell pack. They were going to the compost pile, but I decided to take the time to separate them into 3 6-cell packs. They sat on my outdoor propagation table for about 3 months before I transplanted them in one of my vegetable beds at the end of March. They would have grown faster if I kept them inside but then I might forget to water them. I left them on the propagation table so they could get misted everyday.

For a while I thought I was losing all of them to the pill bugs. I asked Master Ken what I could do to get rid of the pill bugs safely. I don't ever want to use pesticide on anything I grow. He told me to spray my soil where the bugs are with diluted soapy water. We are talking about 2 drops of dish detergent in 1 quart of water. This is similar to another friend's recipe on getting rid of aphids.

I sprayed the spinach bed with the solution, and within days I saw a significant improvement. In one particular corner, the spinach started to flourish. Every year I try to grow spinach because it is my favorite green leafy vegetable. They aren't as big as super market bunches, but I get to pick them right in my own yard, and I know they can never be contaminated with e-coli. I am going to sauté this whole basket of spinach with a little olive oil and garlic and grill a piece of hamachi fillet for dinner .

Spring Planting!

Tomato seedlings

March 20, 2011, was Vernal Equinox, first day of spring. We had almost constant rain for the entire month of March; however, today looks and feels like spring. I figure that I need to get out there and start planting. I have some tomato seedlings that need to be separated. I always plant more just in case that some of them don't make it. I also like to give extra seedlings away. People are more likely to experiment with growing food if they can get their first few plants for free. Giving away seedlings is also good Karma building. More than 3 years ago I gave away a bunch of extra tomato seedlings to a bunch of co-workers. One of them is an experienced gardener. He had been propagating from my seedlings and sold over 300 of them at Merritt College's plant sale. Since we have no idea what variety this tomato is, it's been called "Lina's tomato." All I know is that I saved those seeds from some grocery store bought tomatoes. That was probably the last time I bought tomatoes from a store.  I got some of those Lina's tomato seedlings back yesterday because I gave them away years ago.

My barrel of compost

In order to separate the seedlings into individual cells, I need some soil. I have been using one of the wine barrels as a compost tub after the honeydew melons died off. I just kept dumping Dusty's litter box contents into the barrel and mix them all together every few weeks. Now the barrel is full of rich compost and earthworms! These tomato seedlings are still a bit too small, so I will keep them in the sun room for a few more weeks until the temperature stops fluctuate too much. The seedlings could die from frost easily if it gets cold again at night. I am also going to keep a few in 1-gallon pots this year, so I can bring them back into the sun room next winter. I want to see whether I can keep growing tomatoes all year round.

Separated tomato seedlings

I had three 6-cell packs of spinach sitting on the propagation table for the last 3 months. I decided it is time to plant them in one of the vegetable beds. I plant them along the irrigation tube so they can get water after I turn the system back on now that the rain seems to have stopped.

Spinach planted along the irrigation tube

The Dinner Basket

I have collected many baskets over the years. Each of them is used for a different purpose. This small round basket is my meal basket that I keep next to the fridge. This evening I cut some Bloomsdale spinach, broccoli de cicco, and green onion for my noodle soup.

Both spinach and broccoli are my favorite greens. I am happy with the result of growing both vegetables this year. I have totally failed on growing spinach last year, and the broccoli was infested with broccoli worms and aphids. I didn't want to give up on my favorite veggies, so this year I started growing spinach seeds in the green house until they were at least 6 inches tall. Still, they started to look beat up after transplanted outside. I think it had to do with the late summer this year. It's been usually cool and wet this year. It took several weeks for them to adjust and started to thrive. All the spinach plants are flowering now. I will soon be able to collect seeds for next year.


I came upon a posting of 4-inch 6-pack broccoli de cicco for sale on Cragislist.com. I didn't know what broccoli de cicco was until further reading. I was excited since I love the idea of eating all parts of broccoli. I ordered 2 6-packs of broccoli de cicco, and about half of them died off. The other half started to do much better after I transferred them to a different vegetable bed with a different soil mix. I was worried about broccoli worms and aphids. Amazingly, only one small floret was infested with aphids and no worm on any of them. I am not sure why I didn't get the worms this year. A few things I did differently with the broccoli this year are: different location, different variety, further spacing, and I eat the florets early instead of waiting for them to get bigger. Last year I wanted to wait for them to get bigger, and they turned into caterpillar food.