Mushrooms 101: Great Source of Vitamin D

This week, we got Monterey Mushrooms in our Bountiful Baskets.  If you’re new to mushrooms, you’ll find these tips and information very helpful to getting a great experience out of your mushrooms.

STORING:  Fresh mushrooms should be stored with cool air circulating around them.  Therefore, they should be placed on a tray in a single layer, covered with a damp paper towel and refrigerated for up to 3 days.  Before use, they should be wiped with a damp paper towel or, if necessary, rinsed with cold water and dried thoroughly.  Mushrooms should never be soaked because they absorb water and will become mushy.

PREPARING: Trim the stem ends and prepare according to recipe directions.

CONVERSIONS:  1 pound fresh mushrooms = 6 cups chopped, 5 cups sliced, 3 ounces dried, reconstituted; 4 ounces = 2/3 cup sliced

Mushrooms are one of nature’s most versatile foods and can be used in hundreds of ways and cooked in almost any way imaginable.  My favorite resource for recipes is always the company website that sells the particular item.  So today, I turned to MontereyMushrooms.com and found plenty of recipes to try!  Here are some of the recipe that caught my eye and that I know I have ingredients on hand for: Mushrooms and White Bean Soup, Parmesan Quickies, the Mushroom and Salami Dip (use fat free cream cheese), Brazilian-Style Barbecue with Spicy Onion Salsa (this looks amazing!), Super Mushroom Veggie Pasta (could substitute a few things to make it work with this week’s basket), Southwestern Grilled Chicken and Mushroom Salad (this also looks divine and you could easily adjust it to work with the produce we got this week)…

Those are just a few of my favorites, but there are plenty of recipes to look through on that side and you know they would only post the best of the best recipes so you’ll fall in love with mushrooms!

Photo from MontereyMushrooms.com