Tag: farm life

Giant Puffball Mushroom

Overnight it seemed, these giant puffball mushrooms sprouted in our backyard. We spotted them in autumn last year and let them grow till they popped into greenish brown powdery spores. Cute, then gross. This year, we found a bunch of them in the same spot. I wondered if they were edible. Google said yes. And it has been found to contain a mucoprotein called calvacin, which is a potent antitumor agent, but becomes toxic with prolonged use. Once a year, though, and eating it as close to nature as possible instead of ingesting a distilled version? I’m willing to give it a try.

So we plucked one out, inspected it to make sure it really was a Calvatia gigantea, and rinsed the dirt off.

Cut off the bottom. This picture shows a couple of the defining characteristics of a Calvatia gigantea: no stem and no gills.

Slice it up. Some people slice off the outer layer and wind up with a block. We just sliced it. As you can see, we picked it early enough in its development stages. The inside is still white and perfect. Do not eat if there are spores.

Store and refrigerate the rest.

Some organic extra virgin coconut oil on the cast iron griddle over medium low. Throw in a sliced onion and cook until glassy. I mixed equal parts safflower oil and soy sauce, some salt and pepper to taste, garlic powder, pinch of cayenne, dipped the giant puffball mushroom slice both sides and cooked it.

Cut it up into strips and serve it up. It would make an amazing addition to stir fry vegetables. The mushroom flavor is subtle and takes on seasonings really well. The texture is soft and smooth against the tongue. I love it!

Also great dipped in a beaten egg and French Toasted.

Gluten-free French Toast Giant Puffball Mushroom with maple syrup drizzled on top and fruit on the side.

Have you ever eaten a Giant Puffball Mushroom? Got any recipes to share? Scroll below to comment. Thank you!

September 26, 2018
Duck Eggs

I received a flat of fresh duck eggs as a gift!

I grew up eating duck eggs in the Philippines. The infamous balut is hardboiled fertilized duck egg, with a half-formed baby chick on one side and a bright yellow veiny yolk on the other. Begin by cracking the balut on one end to make a little hole, sprinkle some salt in there and suck on the soup. Then remove the rest of the shell, salt to taste and dig in. I’ve never eaten the chick part, but the yolk is rich and protein-packed goodness in a gulp. There is also a hard white “bone” in there. Don’t eat that.

Penoy is another duck egg delicacy. It is unfertilized duck eggs, not as gruesome as its counterpart. It is all yellow yolk the whole egg through. It comes either soupy or dry. The soupy kind was incubated in rice hay for 12 days. Incubated for more than 12 days and it dries out for those who prefer to eat the dry kind.

I received a flat of #duck #eggs as a gift. That’s 30 eggs!

A photo posted by Modern Wife (@modernwife) on May 5, 2015 at 6:10am PDT

The duck eggs I received were unfertilized and not incubated. They were simple farm fresh duck eggs, and the first thing I did was hard boil some of them. Same as chicken eggs, I fill a small pot with water to cover the eggs, set the stove on high until the water reaches a rolling boil, then turn the burner off. I let the eggs sit in hot water for 15 minutes, then pour the water out and rinse the eggs in cold water.

Hard boiled #duck #egg. A photo posted by Modern Wife (@modernwife) on May 5, 2015 at 6:11am PDT

I love eggs of all kinds. They are perfection!

Peeling a hard boiled #duck #egg. A photo posted by Modern Wife (@modernwife) on May 5, 2015 at 6:11am PDT

Look at how much of the egg is yolk, and how rich and creamy it is. Duck eggs are bigger and more nutritious than chicken eggs. It has 52% more vitamin B12, 13% more selenium, 10% more iron, almost twice as much omega-3s than chicken eggs. The list goes on. Whatever nutrition chicken eggs have, duck eggs have more of it. And because there isn’t a huge duck egg industry, it is more likely that duck eggs come from humanely raised ducks that get to run around free at the farm.

That #yolk is a beauty. Flavorful too! Hard boiled #duck #egg.

A photo posted by Modern Wife (@modernwife) on May 5, 2015 at 6:12am PDT

Duck eggs can be cooked every way chicken eggs are cooked. We used it for homemade pasta, green egg sandwich, and ice cream.

4 #duck #egg #yolks. Can you guess what I’m making?

A photo posted by Modern Wife (@modernwife) on May 7, 2015 at 1:03pm PDT

So if you ever come across duck eggs at farmers markets or health food stores, jump on it. This richer and more nutritious egg is worth a try.

May 24, 2015
Garden Update

My Shade Garden is coming along nicely. Most of it, at least. I planted early spring plants such as peas, sugar snap peas, broccoli, lettuce, radishes and beets on February 16 and 17.

Remember those Sugar Snap Peas I got from Botanical Interests that I planted a while back? Here they are now!

Aren’t they happy?

The radishes are perking up adorably as well. Here’s one. I love its red stems and heart-shaped leaves.

I can’t wait to see these underground beauties.

The lettuce, broccoli, spinach and beets have also sprouted, but I’ll wait a little bit until they’re bigger before I take pictures.

Someone has been messing around in my garden. I don’t know if it’s a bird or a little mammal, but I really need to figure out a way to keep my plants from getting eaten. I have both a cat and a dog, and the neighbors’ cats come over to play too. You’d think we’d keep the rodents and birds in check, but I still see a lot of gopher holes throughout the lawn.

I was thinking of maybe building some kind of Arduino-powered robot-scarecrow to create a motion-detecting alarm to scare off little creatures. Still tossing around some ideas. Maybe something as simple as solar-powered or wind-powered kinetic sculptures would be sufficient.

As for the Little Marvel Shelling Peas I had leftover from last year, I wrote about refrigerating them before putting them in the ground. I think I read about it somewhere in an old copy of The Old Farmers Almanac. Well, my peas took a very long time to emerge. The Sugar Snaps were way further along before I saw even just a peep of the peas. I finally saw some of them this weekend.

What else have I got to report? Remember the rose bushes I pruned and fed banana peels? They are growing so big and beautiful. Here’s Security, the Rose Bush with the killer thorns by my daughter’s window.

The Olive tree is sprouting shoots at its base.

I think I may take cuttings this summer and see if we can grow more of this Olive tree that is so rich in symbolism.

March 10, 2013
Botanical Interests

I got my seeds from Botanical Interests! They came in this pretty box which fits nicely in my mailbox.

A while back I was thinking about seeds and the recent defeat of Proposition 37 here in California. Without mandatory labeling of GMO seeds and food, I will have to assume something is genetically modified, unless they voluntarily state otherwise. The Non-GMO Project is an awesome guide to finding non-GMO products. The Cornucopia Seeds I bought at my local OSH last fall were marked “Not treated or genetically modified” right on the packet. Mike at Urban Organic Gardener wrote about Sources for Buying Non-GMO seeds. The comments thread is really really interesting. One of the commenters posted a list of seed companies owned or supplied by Monsanto. They could be selling organic or non-gmo seeds and still be making money for the Evil Empire. Well, I was glad to know that the seeds I got last fall have nothing to do with Monsanto. And this winter I bought my seeds from Botanical Interests, which sells non-GMO organic and heirloom seeds. They are not on the list of seed villains. And they have these lovely illustrations on the packets. That goes a long way with me.

I bought so many seeds! I admit I got a little carried away. For less than the price of one trip to the grocery store, I just bought my family’s vegetables all year. I also received a complimentary packet of Lettuce.

With these non-gmo organic seeds, and our own gardens that we’ll tend using organic gardening practices, we will be eating better than we ever have. I imagine just-picked sugar snap peas crunching in my mouth, not having soggy or dried out vegetables in the refrigerator, everything eaten just after snipping it off the plant. Does that sound like heaven to you?

February 20, 2013
The Adventures of Cosmo

Look at my sweet little dog whispering secrets to my daughter. Cosmo is the best dog ever. Very mellow around kids, lets my daughter dress him up, follows basic commands like sit, stay, drop it, does a lot of fun tricks like roll over, high-five, jump through hoop, the works!

But.

Cosmo is a rat terrier. He runs very fast and is a killing machine. The other day my husband saw him with the neighbor’s chicken in his mouth. Cosmo got reprimanded big-time in our house. He chases squirrels up trees and keeps our house and farm rodent-free.

Most of the time we don’t see him in action. One time in Maine we saw him emerge from underneath our little red cabin with a mouse’s tail dangling off his lips.

This past weekend I was turning the compost pile while the kids were running around in the field, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Cosmo digging furiously. When I looked at him directly I saw him push his pointy nose into the hole and pull out little pink things, which he dropped on the ground and started eating one by one.

Baby mice!

I called the kids so they could watch their beloved mild-mannered carnivore fulfill the circle of life. Amid screams of Ewwww, I heard one of them dare my daughter to touch the baby mouse. So I picked up one of them, the mouse, not the kid, still alive, and put it right in my daughter’s hand. Suddenly all the kids wanted to pet the baby.

It was so small. Its eyes weren’t even open yet. It kept opening and closing its mouth, looking for its Mama, but no sound came from it. My daughter wanted to feed it milk and keep it as a pet. I said it was pointless to raise it just so our dog or cat could eat it once it was grown.

We decided to put it back in the hole it was found in, to give it a chance. Maybe it would die of cold or a stray cat would snatch it up. But maybe its Mama would come back and find it and take it far away so it could be someone else’s nuisance. Or… or… maybe it will come back as some kind of super villain swearing vengeance on my dog for killing its siblings. That would be really interesting.

January 29, 2013
Chicken Kitchen

We just recently moved to an old ranch-style farmhouse on a 3.6 acre property. There’s a lot to do, and many springtime dreams of starting a garden, raising chickens and a beehive. Upon move-in, though, my first priority was to clean and set up the kitchen.

Let me show you our kitchen, the Chicken Kitchen.

The Chicken Kitchen is a charming old farm kitchen, with lots of chicken accents all over. We’ve got the chicken runner under the ceiling, the chicken tiles and the chicken cabinet knobs. Not in the picture are chicken light switches, chicken chain pulls on the ceiling fan, and a chicken sink drain strainer. Chick chick chicken!

There was a layer of greasy dust everywhere, from the tops of the ceiling runner, the cabinet knobs, drawers and shelves. Don’t even get me started on the stove.

So I pulled on the rubber gloves and set to work. First I threw away all toxic chemical cleaners and bleaches. I only used water, heavy duty scouring pads, scrub sponge and for really greasy hard-to-scrub areas, Barkeepers Friend.

This vintage Jenn-Air Downdraft Stove was so caked with burnt grease on the stove rings. The burner plates were black and ready to crumble into dust. The downdraft filter was gross, and I fished out a fork, an old spaghetti, and old food caked at the bottom. (Sorry if I’m making you lose your lunch. I skipped taking a picture because I didn’t want to lose my lunch.) The grill and griddle cartridge set was so caked with grease I deemed it beyond restoration, so it went to the trash. (I spied a used set on eBay for less than $50 plus shipping, so maybe, maybe after Christmas…) But the burners were fine. With a lot of elbow grease and new burner plates, this stove is back in business. Look at that polished chrome!

I scrubbed the greasy dust off the ceiling, runner and molding. No grease or dust was safe from me. Everything got the rub down.

When all was scrubbed and clean, I bought about 5 rolls of Magic Cover Self-Adhesive Shelf Liners in Polka Dots for the drawers and shelves. They’re over $7 per roll, and they really perk up my kitchen.

I measure my surface and cut the contact paper to size. If it’s a small piece, I peel all the backlining paper off. If it’s a large piece I peel off just a corner or a side. I put the contact paper into position and press down, peeling off the backlining paper as I press the contact paper down, smoothing out bubbles and wrinkles as I go.

Some of my shelves and drawers are unfinished wood, a little splintery, so I cut out extra on the sides so I can fold it over and cover the edges as well.

We removed the microwave since we don’t use it, covered the hole with contact paper and turned it into my breadmaker cave.

Thanks for visiting the Chicken Kitchen.

December 14, 2012