Hello everyone ,
Today’s story is about mushroom safety .
As we all know there was an unfortunate incident where innocent people lost their lives after a family lunch date .
It’s widely known that the mushrooms used in the beef wellingtons unfortunately were the cause of the deaths of the guests , it’s all still under investigation by the police and a lady has been arrested and charged with three counts of murder , she is currently bringing held in custody under remand to appear in a country court in April this year .
The case has stirred up one of the largest media and public interest ever in history, since coming to light.
Erin is innocent until proven guilty and that’s the law.
So that is the base of today’s story as the prelude above almost designated the commercial mushroom growers in Australia .
The demand for mushrooms in the shop vanished overnight nearly bankrupting the growers overnight .
Now I have been known to pick my own mushrooms in season in the paddocks that haven’t had super phosphate fertiliser spread on them , as this instantly kills off the mushroom spawn that lays dormant in the topsoil
That explains why they are mostly found then in the steep hilly country as it’s to dangerous to use a tractor there because it may roll over and kill you.
So come every April I pray for lots of heavy rain, and if it comes with enough volume and a little bit of follow up sun , with the warm ground still from a cooling Autumn mushrooms just pop up everywhere , and they grow so fast in ideal conditions,
If you find the newest ones their underside gills are a bright Lovley pink , if they are a few days old they are a nice deep brown and if they are old they are black and rotting and sometimes fly blown and they may contain maggots.
So best to get them early , so we would as kids , have a bucket each with a bread and butter knife that would bouncing around in the bucket ,
and when mum pulled up in the car we would run fast to get over the fence sometimes getting a zap as there were lots of electric fences on farms .
You could see patches of mushies that had popped up everywhere and we’d would run as fast as we co with mum yelling out slow down, they can’t run away .
I would half the time squish mine by being over enthusiastic , by the end of the pick my bucket would contain mushrooms , grass, cow shit and dirt ,
Mums bucket was pristine hers always looked ready to eat.
So the trip home and prepare the mushrooms for cooking by washing them all and cutting the stem shorter to remove the dirty part .
So in a saucepan a little bit of water and pop in your mushrooms and cook on med heat and they will stew down nicely ready to eat.
I prefer my mushrooms thickened and served on toast ,
To thicken them you get a teaspoon of corn flower and put it in half a cup of milk and add a dash of soy sause and mix it thoroughly to minimise lumps in your sauce,
so while your mushies are simmering slowly poar in your cornflour mixture. Whilst continuing to stir the pot .
Soon they will just thicken beautifully , cook up some pieces of toast lather the toast thick with real butter and top with your thickened mushrooms.
In all honesty I can’t accurately begin explain to you city folk just how good they actually taste .
They melt in your mouth and sort of taste as good as home grown tomatoes do , there’s just no comparison.
So the story goes with all the worry about mushrooms, I was in Aldi one day and I spotted a grow your own mushroom kit , so I thought hmm
They can’t be poisonous.
I had also looked at a few shrooms around the farm and they are definitely sus ,
So I opened the box and followed the instructions and I watered them in, and because you have to water them daily I thought a bright idea was to put them on a shelf near my toilet so I would see them every morning.
It’s a wife’s tale that you have to grow them in The dark it’s just that if there is too much daylight they grow to be brown instead of white , and they cook up and taste exactly the same.
So I visited my toilet every morning and I dutifully watered my mushie box that contains a big plastic bag inside as a liner so it’s safe to water 
ever day .
One day I saw lots of little white dots the size of a pin head most around the outside edges of the box .
I was super excited. 
I’m a matter of days they were so big that I picked them and I weighed them as part of my experiment on what is cheeper to buy mushrooms at the supermarket or to grow your own in a kit.
I got another big pick out of the box then a smaller one and it was spent, the contents went onto the veggie garden for the mushroom 
compost is good plant food .
I had another test kit do I started that one off.
that was the first pick
oops these are no good
nor these
but these are brilliant.
So when it comes to my conclusion of my experiment with which one is cheeper the supermarket wins the mushroom challenge, by a bit ,
But on the other hand it’s so much fun watching them grow and picking them fresh and cooking them or into a salad 
So , really I do prefer the field ones dirt and all in April and if you pick enough of them you can freeze or preserve them to have later.
I hope you have enjoyed todays story and you are less hesitant to buy mushrooms in the supermarket and support our local growers that have had it a bit tough as of late , but I be it has turned the corner for them now .
So do grow or buy mushrooms
Get them into you they are a good source of iron and they have lots of other benefits
Cheers xxx
Curlyg