Marinated Mushrooms

Lucked into some mushrooms at a great price yesterday. Found a good recipe (on Recipezaar, I believe -- "Laurel's Marinated Mushrooms (Easy Canning)" for marinating & canning them in a water bath, like pickles -- which they basically are. It was good to use the water-bath canner, for a change. I've done so much pressure canning lately (just finished canning 21 pints of ham) that it's a good refresher. The recipe indicates it makes 12 - 15 half-pints, but I ended up with way too many mushrooms prepped. So I'll have to can the rest of them tomorrow. I'll probably end up with close to a couple dozen, which is fine with me -- they'll make great gifts!

I have to admit that I did modify the recipe a little, though. It calls for miniature mushrooms, no larger than 1-1/4 inches, with the stems trimmed even with the bottom. Well, I didn't have tiny mushrooms, and I just can't bring myself to toss out perfectly good food -- and I knew I'd never find a use for just the stems -- so I quartered what I had. As it turned out, 1 pound will fill 3 half-pint jars.

I'm a little surprised at how little I'm spending on groceries, these days. Guess buying in bulk (and at the super-duper discount places) really does make a difference. I have had to invest in quite a few canning jars, and will need to buy more, but that's ok -- as long as we don't drop them, they can be used over & over.

Had a magnificent flop tonight. I realized this a.m. that I still had the last 7 or so pounds of a 25# bag of carrots languishing in the bottom of the fridge (already dehydrated the rest). Went online, looking for a candied carrot recipe for canning. (Found one -- carrots, a little fresh or frozen fruit juice -- it also called for butter, although that's controversial.) In the process, I ran across a glazed carrot recipe that called for vanilla. That caused me to "shift gears", and think about something to dehydrate. I tried to make a carrot-applesauce-yogurt "chew" (like fruit leather), but inadvertently used an ingredient that had gone rancid. Just about curl your hair! So I tossed that, and ended up making fruit leather with applesauce and yogurt (1:1 ratio). Put some coconut extract & a little honey in, just for fun. Sure smells better than the mushrooms I dehydrated earlier (my husband asked if I was dehydrating liver for the dogs again...). If that works out, I may try it again later, adding some carrots, just for fun.