The Benefits of Mushrooms

Mushrooms have been around for years growing in your yard, a field or pasture or found in your local grocery store and farmers market. Did you know that certain mushrooms can provide you with essential vitamins when used in salads, baked dishes or a part of a vegetable tray? Whether you eat them in foods or raw dipped in your favorite sauce, you are still receiving important nutrients from mushrooms. You can buy mushrooms in cartons at your local store and you can even purchase foods with mushrooms already added. Fresh is always best when it comes to certain foods and the mushroom is one that falls under that category. Enjoy a mushroom cut up in your foods, whole as a snack or even in a powder form to add flavor to your favorite meal.

Since there are a variety of mushrooms in the world, the knowledge of the mushroom is important when it comes to the ones you can eat and the ones that are not edible. Knowing the difference between the types of mushrooms and their name as well as appearance is the difference between a good experience with mushrooms and a bad experience. Online you can rely on the experience found in a company that specializes in mushrooms and has experience in growing mushrooms, selling varieties of mushrooms and participating in vast research of the very popular mushroom and its family. With the knowledge the company supplies, you will be cooking with mushrooms in no time and even growing your own mushrooms. Imagine the fun you and your family can have when you purchase one of the extraordinary mushroom growing kits that will provide your children with an educational -- and tasty! -- experience.

Take advantage of the wonderful flavors as well as nutrients that you will bring to your body when you add mushrooms to your diet. You can choose from a variety of dried mushrooms to mushroom kits as well as dried candy caps and mushroom seasonings. If you are looking for a gift for the chef in your life, why not introduce them to a site that will provide extensive knowledge on the different types of mushrooms?

4 Delicious Mushroom Soup Recipes

Soups are wonderful all-round meals. They're great for storing the freezer and heating up quickly when you have no time to cook but are starving … they're great for both lunch and dinner … the water content in soup is said to help you lose weight … and there are just so many varieties! Today we're talking about how our favorite ingredient, mushrooms, fits into the soup genre. It is especially easy to use dried mushrooms in soups, because they naturally rehydrate with no additional work. Here are 4 mouth-watering options for dinner tonight!

Cream of Mushroom Soup

A great basic recipe to have under your belt. This only needs to be served in small bowls, because it is so rich and creamy. Use light and delicately flavored mushrooms like dried candy caps and dried pearl oyster mushrooms. Like most soups, it takes a while to cook, but all you need to do in terms of prep is chop and go.

Mushroom Laksa

Laksa tastes delicious and quite complex to a Western palate, but is actually quite simple to make. The poorer South East Asian countries where laksa originated depend heavily on mushrooms as a food source, so most Asian soups are delicious with mushrooms included. We recommend dried shiitake mushrooms for this dish.

Mushroom, Potato and Leek Soup

If you have your own favorite potato and leek soup, simply chuck in a few mushrooms -- there is no need to learn a whole new one! Sautee them first, though you should separate them from the leeks in the prep process.

Mushroom Meatballs in Noodle Soup

See how neatly mushrooms fit into the slot left by meat! Most of us eat a little more meat than we should -- you can cut down very easily without losing any of that delicious feeling of fullness or the rich flavor, by substituting mushrooms. Black trumpet dried mushrooms are best in dishes where a strong and rich flavor is needed, like this one.

A Guide to Exotic Cooking Mushrooms

Almost all of us are familiar with what the common varieties of mushroom look like and how to use them in our cooking. Many people aren’t even aware that there is an entire universe of both fresh and dried mushrooms beyond champignons! Today we have an overview of some of the more exotic varieties of mushrooms; descriptions and use in cooking, as well as their health benefits.

Oyster mushrooms

These mushrooms grow on the sides of trees rather than in the ground, and right from the start you can tell that they won't be the same as a boring old cup mushroom! They are common throughout North America, Asia, Europe and Australia. They are extremely versatile, and you can buy them as mushroom powders, dried or fresh.

Enoki mushrooms

These tiny, delicate mushrooms have a long stem and are cultivated in bunches. You can eat them raw -- they have a fruity sort of flavor! If you’re going to make shabu shabu, you'll need plenty of enoki mushrooms.

Shiitake mushrooms

Shiitake mushrooms have one of the highest antioxidant contents of any type of mushrooms -- they are being credited with helping keep the rates of cancer in China and Japan relatively low. They are also known as oak mushrooms, and you can buy them as dried mushrooms, mushroom powders or simply fresh in many speciality shops. They go well with stronger flavored meats.

Pine mushrooms

These delicious fungi commonly grow under pine trees, and exude a milky orange sap when cut. This sap adds color and flavor to dishes, matching well with pasta and egg dishes because of the nutty overtones.

Chanterelle mushrooms

You will usually only find chanterelle mushrooms as dried mushrooms or in powdered form. The name encompasses an entire family of mushrooms, but the ones you are likely to buy are golden chanterelle. They have a strong apricot smell, which can be slightly confusing! Soak them for 15-20 minutes in warm water, and if you're going to use dried mushrooms in soups or casseroles, add them at the start of the process, rather than the end as you would with fresh 'shrooms.

Dried Shiitake Mushrooms -- RECIPES!

Shiitake mushrooms have a very definite flavor -- you'll find button or cup mushrooms difficult to go back to once you've become used to the strong and exotic taste of dried shiitake mushrooms! While they are lighter in weight than the fresh variety, the flavor is also greatly intensified, so you don't need as much dried mushroom for a recipe as you would fresh. Today we are looking at how to incorporate these little flavor- and health-bombs into your everyday cooking, with some top shiitake mushroom recipes!

1. Mushroom Tart and Gravy

You can actually modify this recipe to include mushroom powder in the pastry, and put whatever meats and vegetables you like in the tart instead of just filling with mushrooms. The flavor permeates -- especially if you use the shiitake mushrooms stalks in the gravy as suggested.

2. Chow Mein

There are a hundred chow mein recipes available online, and this is a very simple one. If you really appreciate the flavor of your dried shiitake mushrooms, though, you'll love how they aren't drowned out by the other ingredients in this dish.

3. Mushroom and Bacon Curls with Creamed Eggs

This recipe is a Saturday breakfast favorite, and a great way to help you use up any excess mushrooms if you've been growing your own! The recipe says that you can use macaroni or asparagus in place of the mushrooms, but for us that simply isn’t an option!

4. Scrambled Eggs with Shiitake Mushrooms

Everybody has their own favorite scrambled egg recipe, and you can quite easily substitute the egg portion of this guide for your own, if you prefer. The real value of this dried shiitake mushrooms recipe is the guide for incorporating mushrooms into the scrambled eggs - issues regarding precooking and when to add the shrooms often catch people out. They can ruin a good shiitake!

5. Pasta with Dried Shiitake Mushrooms and Tomato Sauce

What an awesome substitute for meat Bolognese … what a healthy substitute for meat Bolognese! Dried shiitake mushrooms or dried porcini mushrooms can be used in this recipe, and they really fill out the dish. Mushrooms are one of the superstars of Italian cooking, for certain!

Fresh and Dried Shiitake Mushrooms -- Top 4 Cooking Hints

Shiitake mushrooms have gotten a lot of press lately, as the generall good health of Japanese people is increasingly studied by scientists, and more dietary hints about the origins of their good health emerge. Dried shitake mushrooms have plenty of health benefits, and are almost as potent as the fresh version. If you’re doing any cooking with dried shiitakes, we are today exploring some general hints for using them in your dishes.

1. Storage

Creating dishes with maximum flavor and health actually begins as soon as you bring your ingredients home from the store. Shiitake mushrooms should be stored slightly differently to other fresh produce:

• Always store in the fridge
• A paper bag will stop them sweating and going slimy, but will allow them to dry out more quickly
• Plastic bags should only be used for a very short time -- everywhere the bag touches the mushroom it will develop a layer of slime on top
• Plastic punnets with the mushrooms loosely packed inside, and a cling film covering that doesn’t touch the mushrooms, seems to be ideal for keeping mushrooms fresh longer.

2. To wash, or not to wash?

Most shiitake mushrooms do not need to be washed. Even commercially grown ones rarely need to be sprayed with pesticides or have any herbicide drift -- they grow so quickly and are almost never grown alongside other crops. You might just want to brush any dirt off with a pastry brush.

Washing dried shiitake mushrooms will cause them to absorb the liquid, creating a less potent taste. It would be rare that this was necessary.

3. Prepping your dried shiitake mushrooms

The basic rule for mushrooms is to trim, but not peel. You'll find peeling your dried shiitake mushrooms inordinately difficult, and it will do nothing to improve the flavour while stripping the fungi or valuable healthy compounds! Shiitakes often have a long dry stem portion which needs to be trimmed, but if you buy dried this may have been done for you.

4. Precooking in the microwave

Did you know you can precook your dried shiitake mushrooms in the microwave? Mushrooms tolerate microwave cooking extremely well, and contrary to popular belief scientific studies have shown that substantially more vitamins are preserved using this method.

Mushrooms and the World's Problems

There has been so much exciting research into the health benefits of mushrooms -- both for humans and for the planet Earth. The research explored has been in no particular order, and the benefits of mushroom kits, mushroom powders and seasonings explored here are just as valuable as those in the previous two posts. Be inspired by mushrooms.

Mushrooms helping fight obesity

Mushrooms are a low energy density food, yet have the same filling action and long-lasting effect on appetite that intake of high energy density foods like beef do. A small study involving the substitution of beef entrees for mushroom entrees showed that while there is no difference (generally) between the palatability of the meal, how full people feel afterwards, and full they feel for the rest of the day, there si a big difference in total calories and fat consumed.

Portabella and crimini mushrooms have same antioxidant action as colourful veges

If you grow your own portabella and crimini mushrooms in a mushroom growing kit (and eat them!), you are enjoying the same antioxidant benefits as those who eat fresh carrots, green beans, red peppers and broccoli daily. Color has long been thought to be an indicator of antioxidant effect -- a new study at Penn State disproved this with mushroom powders.

Shiitake mushrooms improve immune functions and crop health

Researches have found that the high molecular weight polysaccharides (HMWPs) in shiitake mushrooms could improve immune function in general, making them a possible preventive and reactive cure for a host of diseases. The logs that shiitake mushrooms are grown on can also improve the health of other crops (spinach, in the study), when chipped and added to the soil.

Organic insulation from mushroom spores

Student inventor Eban Bayer has created an organic insulation material from mushroom spores, as well as water, flour and minerals. This could help reduce energy consumption in households drastically, with a cheap medium. Perhaps someday you could grow your own insulation!

Mushrooms and the World's Problems

Mushrooms don’t generally get enough credit. In some countries, to be a fungus is one of the deepest insults possible! In reality, mushrooms are an essential part of our ecosystem, have enormous medicinal benefits, and help the environment in a myriad of ways. Let's look at the most interesting research on mushrooms, mushroom seasonings and mushroom spices in recent times, looking at them from a perspective for the health of the body, and the planet.

Button mushrooms pack same antioxidant benefit as exotics

Exotic mushrooms include dried porcini mushrooms, dried shiitake mushrooms and their close cousin the maitake, and other exotics like oyster mushrooms and matsutake mushrooms. A French team from the Institut National de la Recherche Agrinomique found that button mushrooms had the same (and in some cases better) free radical scavenging abilities as other more expensive and exotic mushrooms. The body was found to be higher in antioxidants than the stalk, also. However, compounds that are specific to exotic mushrooms may make an impact on their ability to fight certain diseases.

Maitakes help in protein identification

Maitake mushrooms are not only healthful in and of themselves, but are helping researchers discover all sorts of things about other organisms. Utrecht University's Prof Albert Heck found a way to identify protein types without knowing an organism's genetic makeup - previously a requirement for protein study. This will be used for exotic animal species, as well a for research into disease that change genetic makeup, like cancer and diabetes.

Mushrooms used as medicine delivery platform

You might be eating mushrooms instead of popping pills to help cure your ailments before long -- and not just because they are naturally rich in antioxidants. The prevalence of new treatments for diseases means that a platform which is reliable, cheap and fast for mass-producing protein based drugs is needed. Dr Romaine from Penn State University thinks that may be mushrooms.

Stay tuned for more research news on how mushroom kits and mushroom powders are improving our lives!