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What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
At the local farmers market they sell a box for $25 that contains a block that, after a couple weeks of squirting with water, grows into a gigantic 3-4 lb lions mane mushroom.
This is the second time I’ve done this. It’s quite satisfying watching this monster grow, at first so white, then a bit yellowish with long tendrils.
It allows me to make truly decadent dishes. I fry up fat slices of the mushrooms until they’re golden brown and eat them on toast or in pasta. I also like they’re medicinal, with positive cognitive effects.
But I’m coming to the inescapable conclusion that such heroic doses lead to equally heroic amounts of diarrhea the next day. Poor me. I evidently need to cut back the amount I ingest at a time. No more luxurious amounts at a single sitting.
Anyone else have issues eating so much of a lions mane at a time?
I can't recall lion's mane specifically, but in the fungi and foraging groups I'm in, it's pretty common to see that some people simply react poorly to edible mushrooms that many others can eat heaps of with no ill effects. It's recommended to try just little bits of a new group or species of mushrooms to make sure you can tolerate it.
It sounds like you're cooking them well, but more generally, un/undercooked edible mushrooms can also upset the stomach, too, just because of nondigestible components that break down with heat. Figured I'd mention it just in case.
As an aside, I bought a lions manes kit once and then utterly neglected it. I keep meaning to try again when i have more time! I should buy them to try next time im at my market. Do you have a fave way of serving them?
I like simple flavors. Just a sauté with butter and salt. They have such a delicious flavor I don’t like hiding them.
Never had a digestive issue with them, I love lions mane myself. Are you washing them well? As @lackofaname said, it may just be your digestive system. If you're not eating them often you may want to build up to the large amounts, it could be like suddenly eating a ton of fiber after having very little in your diet.
I like sauteing mine alongside leeks in butter and some garlic
This comment, oddly enough, contains a snake trigger warning.
Well it's definitely my digestive system. It hasn't been healthy in nearly twenty years. I can't eat a majority of food most people can. So I'm just cutting the portions way down and trying to steam them with water-based liquids instead of oil and butter.
If you can believe it, all my digestive troubles started with a rattlesnake bite.
I believe it, people can have really weird responses to venom!
There are actually quite a few recipes that I have wanted to try that use lions mane, but even though many of the markets around me tend to have a lot of mushrooms, none of them carry that type.
I’d consider buying a grow kit but my living space unfortunately cannot accommodate such a setup, especially because we are trying to get rid of some pests right now.
It’s been a few months, but I switched my breakfast habits from fried stuff (typically eggs) and animal protein (cheese and cold cuts) to overnight oats. It was boring at first, but now I’ve come to really enjoy it and no longer miss eggs too much. I place the oats in the fridge overnight, with oat milk and a mix of seeds (chia, flax, hemp, polen granules, a bit of cinnamon). In the morning, I cut some fresh fruit and throw it in the mix too, along with some walnuts or pecans. Filling and plant based. I like it a lot!
It's summer where I live, so I have been going all in on summer foods, especially veggies. I have been trying to shop at greengrocers that carry local products only, though that is not always so easy nowadays.
It's been fantastic! Lots of fresh tomatoes of different types, eggplant, zucchini, salad and bell peppers. The latter I actually never liked throughout my life, but tried again this year and now I love them! It's weird how tastes change like that: I used to get fixated on the bitter aftertaste, but now I can barely taste it, and the main sensation is the sweetness, which I really enjoy.
I am also slowly reintroducing fruit into my diet: I developed a general allergic reaction to fruits which gradually engrossed them all starting when I was around 16, but it seems that it's getting much better lately. I have now tried avocado, melon, plums and raspberries in small quantities and they seem to be fine. I cannot describe how good summer fruits (which were always my favorite!) taste after 10 years of not eating them!
In all, I am really happy about the philosophy that I have taken with food in the last year, of focusing on eating seasonal food only as much as I can. It's led to a healthier diet, more creative recipes and ingredients, and more excitement when a new season rolls around as you now get to eat a whole new selection of plates. It's been so fun, and also feels very natural.