How to grow your own mushrooms for eating

This week’s D is for Dinner teaches us how to grow our own mushrooms for eating, courtesy of Shelly Lambert, who speaks to Alan Neal on CBC Radio’s All in a Day.

Lambert says mushrooms mostly rely on water and they require oxygen, so they are more like humans than plants. They also require shade like a forest, so the prime spot for growing your own mushrooms is under a deck because outdoor cultivation is always easier.

Lambert brought in a soup dish using mushrooms. Here is the recipe with a note at the bottom on how to make your own mushroom broth.

Hot and sour mushroom soup

Ingredients

• 10 cups of your favourite broth (vegetable, chicken or mushroom — see at bottom).
• 4 tbsp lemongrass, loosely chopped.
• 2 tbsp galangal (or ginger), sliced.
• 4 lime leaves.
• 1-2 red chili peppers.
• 2 cups fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced (She used 1 cup shiitake, 1 cup oyster).
• 2 tree ear mushrooms, thinly sliced.
• 1/2 cup green onion, chopped.
• Handful of enoki mushrooms, whole or cut into 2" lengths.
• Handful of chopped cilantro.
• 1/3 cup lime juice.

Directions

• Bring to boil the broth, lemongrass, galangal, lime leaves and 1/2 of the chili peppers that you are using (you will add the other half thinly sliced at the end of the soup making process). 
• Let the mixture simmer for 20 minutes, then strain. 
• Add the sliced mushrooms to the strained broth, continue to simmer for 5-10 minutes. 
• Turn off the heat and add the remaining chili pepper, green onion, enoki mushrooms, cilantro and lime juice.

Easy mushroom broth

• 1/2 to 1 cup of woody stems from fresh mushrooms.
• 1-2 cups chopped stock vegetables (onion, garlic, carrot, celery).
• 2 tbsp dried mushroom pieces (reishi, turkey tail, oyster, porcini, etc).
• Let all the ingredients simmer together in 10-12 cups of water for about an hour.

Lambert will hold a workshop this Saturday with Lukasz Wozniak in partnership with Just Food.