Cathie is learning about…

Care & Storage of Mushrooms 

If there is one thing I have learned since John started growing mushrooms is that these aren’t your garden variety mushrooms that you get at any old grocery store.  I have had to throw away most of what I thought I knew about mushrooms…it wasn’t alot but still…Here are a couple of things you need to know:

#1 Cleaning

None of the gourmet mushrooms from JCB Gourmet Mushrooms are grown in manure.  That means that you can forget that mushroom brush.  All you need to do to clean most of these mushrooms is to use a damp cloth or paper towel and wipe them.  Lion’s Mane is the exception - you can use a dry toothbrush to clean it;  if you need to get it wet then you can squeeze it out like a sponge afterwards.  The key is to not get any of these mushrooms too wet - mushrooms are already mostly water. Adding more water will affect the flavour.

#2 Storage

Any mushroom should last 5 to 7 days in the fridge.  If you can’t get them eaten in that time frame you can dry them or freeze them with a little work.

Oyster mushrooms should be stored in a plastic bag.  Most varieties are pretty thin so they can dry out pretty quickly.  

Lion’s mane & Shiitake should be stored in a paper bag.

And finally…

There is lots to learn about mushrooms so this is just the beginning…next we start experimenting with some recipes.  It will be exciting to see what we come up with.