Random Sunday Thoughts...and Shiitake Mushroom Soup

It poured all day yesterday, so it would seem as if today could be sunny. Nope. With the waning daylight on both ends, it's getting me down to spend so much time in the low light. And this persistent headache that segues in and out of migraine mode every other day is probably caused by the mold and ragweed allergens, high this time of year around here.

DD17 said her head hurt this morning. That gives me pause, always, but I do think today it's probably the same gunk in the air causing her headache that's causing mine.

I worked a bit on the Heather Hoodie Vest yesterday, but in my enthusiasm to move it along I bound off the back too soon. After eyeing the length dubiously, I compared it to an existing sweater and decided it was going to be too short. So I unbound the edges and put the stitches back on the needles. Two steps forward, one step back. That kind of day.

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One of my few exposures to mushrooms as a child was a stuffed mushroom dish at the holidays. Filled with sausage meat and cheese and egg as a binder, it was tasty but really heavy. And I'm pretty sure all that sausage negated any health benefits from the mushrooms.

Now that I'm an adult, I'm hampered by experimenting with mushrooms since my husband dislikes them. He traces his dislike to childhood trauma involving visits to an aunt who would take all the children mushroom foraging. Then they would return home and she would start cooking all the mushrooms. The smell of the cooking mushrooms scarred him for life, I think.

So, when I started reading about the health benefits of shiitake mushrooms, I was determined to try to include some in our diet (well, husband excludes himself). Unlike more conventional western produce, I'm unsure how to select shiitake mushrooms. Are they fresh? Does organic matter? How do you clean these things? So I cheat and do the American thing: buy frozen. The local supermarkets all carry frozen organic mushrooms, and while it's probably not the same as fresh, it seems good enough for my purposes.

So far, I've used them in fairly easy ways: adding to tomato sauce or in a quick saute. But this week's blog post from Dr. Andrew Weil (another interesting health website) included a recipe for Mushroom Stock using dried shiitake mushrooms. I just had to try it.

You start with dried shiitake mushrooms, which I found easily in the supermarket. I added leeks instead of onions, and left out the fennel which I don't particularly like. I used a low-sodium soy sauce instead of the tamari (which is just a soy sauce, if the label is correct) because I keep soy sauce in the house. Simmer for 1.5 hours and strain.

To make the soup, I reheated the broth later and added some frozen shiitake mushrooms and some orzo because that's what I had on hand. I suppose you could add some green onion or other light vegetable for color and flavor. I'll have to experiment.

We liked this. It was strongly flavored, but interesting. Even DS12 liked it, and he's the picky one. Husband, alas, abstained.