Recipes | So Cal Vegan Gal

Vegan MoFo Day 5:

Many months ago, I bought this deal for three mushroom growing kits by Back to the Roots. I thought this was such an awesome thing! I can grow my own mushrooms?! I love mushrooms. Plus, oyster mushrooms were expensive and hard to find in the stores. I thought I’d save a bundle.

The thing is, you have to spray the thing with water twice a day, everyday, until you are ready to harvest. Since I’m gone most weekends, this kit ended up being quite a burden. When I finally found a good time to start growing, I did as directed.

First, you have to soak the kit (instructions are included when you buy the kit). Then you drain it, put it back in the box, cut some slits, and wait for things to grow.

Soaking the Bag

If your kit actually grows – it’ll look something like the following pictures (I’m such an urban-farming hipster now!):

Day 1

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

I say “if” you kit grows, because my first kit did not grow. They have a 100% guarantee, so I contacted them for support. It took a few days for them to respond (a lot of time wasted for a kit that should be harvestable in about 10 days). By the time they did reply to me, I had already given up on that kit and started a new one (seen above). They gave me tips on how to save the first kit, but it never did grow, so they sent me a new one.

They also say that “when you are ready” you can go ahead and follow the same steps to harvest the other side of the kit. Cool – I can get two harvests out of one kit! Well, I wasn’t “ready” to harvest the second side immediately after finishing the first side, so I waited a week or two. That was a mistake. I came into my kitchen one day to see my kit covered in mold (the bad kind) and fruit flies swarming the place. I had to take that kit out to the trash – leaving me with only one harvest under my belt.

So, would I buy this again? Definitely not!! I think I bought it for around $13, but I’ve seen oyster mushrooms being sold at Whole Foods for $10-$15 a pound. Considering I only got 3 and 1/8th ounces out of my one harvest, it was way not worth the money. I’d say this is only worth it if you have kids and want to do something fun with them. Save your mushroom purchases for the stores.

And did they taste good? I actually didn’t see much difference in them compared to some varieties of cheaper mushrooms at the store. I had been wanting to try this Clam Chowder recipe from Healthy Happy Life, so I used the mushrooms for that. The soup was great!! But I think you could easily sub the mediocre Back to the Roots mushrooms for another variety.

Clam Chowder

Today is the first day of Vegan MoFo! Happy Vegan Month of Food everyone!! In honor of this great month, I will be posting my first recipe to this blog. Not many more will follow, but I will bring you some of my favorite tasty recipes every so often. And check out the official Vegan MoFo blogroll to see some awesome blogs talking about how amazing vegan food can be.

Anyway.

A new product has come on to the markets replacing honey. Now, I know some vegans eat honey, so this is a non-issue. But I used to love honey and now I don’t eat it anymore. I was super excited to try this Bee Free Honee made from apples. Apples? Really? I had read reviews raving about how this product tastes “just like honey!!” They claimed it doesn’t even taste like apples.

I beg to differ. The syrup was good, but it did not taste like honey. In fact, it tasted just like a sweet apple syrup. Hmmm – now what was I going to do with the bottles I had bought in excitement for a product supposed to taste exactly like honey? I didn’t like the taste of it in my traditional uses for honey (mainly with peanut butter and bananas), so I sought out recipes for this product.