GROWING MUSHROOMS
Do you love mushrooms? I’m the only one in my family who eats mushrooms and decided to try a boxed “Mushroom Farm”. Followed the instructions and misted the box everyday and waited.
Fifteen days later the first mushroom appeared!
Closely followed by some more.
Weighed the two crops I got and found I’d grown 156 g of mushrooms. What a flop! I could buy 1.5kg of mushrooms from the grocery shop for the $15.00 I paid for the mushroom farm. There was no second crop so the whole lot went into the garden as soil improver.
GARDEN REPAIRS
This gap between two lots of paving was cracked and some of the old pebbles were becoming loose. I dug out the old pebbles and concrete. The channel shows our grey, hopeless beach sand which needs the constant addition of nutrients
Mixed a bucket of quick set concrete using a recycled bucket from the local deli; it used to hold olives. Mixed it with a stick and poured it into the channel.
Smoothed it out and collected the pebbles I had cleaned and could re-use and included some new ones, too, partially burying the pebbles in the concrete.
The job is nearly finished. I hadn’t cleaned the pebbles with a wet rag when I took this photo. Two days later it has set well and is now clean.
SCRUMPTIOUS SHORTBREAD
I have a friend who often talked about the scrumptious shortbread her mother’s cousin, Nancy, used to bring when she was visiting. Nancy is a close friend of my mother’s and I was delighted to be given her recipe and couldn’t wait to try it. I’m glad I did as it is very, very good.
Cream 7 oz of butter with 3 oz of caster sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence. I discovered my electronic scales can be used in metric and imperial settings which was very helpful. Add 9 oz of plain flour sifted with 2 oz of rice flour. Mix and roll into a ball. I pressed it into a glass tray, rolling the top flat with a small rolling pin.
Cut finger shapes into the dough and prick with a fork then put it in the fridge for an hour.
Bake at 140 C fan forced for 45 minutes then leave it to cool. I ran a knife along the existing cutlines and that made it easy to get the fingers out when the shortbread was cool. This is good shortbread, tasty with a light texture.
Today is PINK DAY. Pink didn’t describe a colour until the 17th century. Before that, pink meant to create a perforated or punched pattern (think pinking shears) Pink, the colour, was previously known as rosy or pale red and remains the colour of romance. I hope you are in the pink of good health.
To celebrate I’ve bought some black and pink, not black and red, journals which are awaiting covers and marbled lining papers.
Hey, that shortbread could be REAL GOOD!
But you gave up too quick on those mushrooms! I vote for trying that again. I mean, all you gotta do is open up the box and they do the rest, right? I dunno, are there mushroom seeds? How do they reproduce? Gotta be some way for the box to keep on producing mushrooms, right? Or maybe not? Those are two kinds of mushrooms you grew, right? The big ones piled up on the weight scale, and the small buttons — which, then you put into the concrete walk, I guess. Cain’t figure out why you’d do that. But — that’s Down Under for ya.(sigh)
Hello!
Mushrooms in the bottom of an urn intended for a rose as soon as I prune it! Bit disappointed with the whole mushroom growing business. Do you like the newly pebbled (mushrooms!!!! ha ha ) path? What do you think of the new notification notice? Thanks for he tips.
Deborah