One of my favorite things about homesteading is being able to provide our own food.  To watch it grow, to prepare it, to preserve it, to savor it later.  To watch the milk hit the pail, turn it into cheese, or pour the delicious cream straight into dishes.  Fresh eggs, which taste nothing like store bought, being broken into a bowl.  Such comfort comes when combining foods that have traveled a very short distance into the kitchen.

The other day I looked over at the counter and there were oyster mushrooms sticking up!  Mind you, I have failed at every mushroom log venture and the like and I sure didn’t expect this one to be any different.  I took a mushroom class and it was fascinating watching the inoculated wheat be added the warmed straw and stuffed into a bread bag with promises of culinary treats.  Our house is so cold that I doubted that it was warm enough for the mushrooms to fruit.  They needed to be kept at 70 degrees for three weeks.  I couldn’t find a place over fifty-five degrees anywhere in the house except by the ducklings.  Their heat lamp helped raise the temperature just right.  A few holes were punched in the bag and after awhile these beauties popped out.  Now, one would take this bag after it was done fruiting and plant it.  So to speak.  Create a simple raised bed and fill with used coffee grounds.  Sprinkle the inoculated straw all over it and let nature do the rest.

Buckley’s Homesteading Supply has regular classes and Manitou Mushroom is the teacher’s site.  Fun stuff.

So fresh eggs cracked into the bowl, whisked with creamy milk.  Add homemade goat cheese and chives.  Add chopped oyster mushrooms from the counter.  A bit of salt and pepper and there you have it.  Homegrown, homemade, homesteading scrambled eggs.  What a blessing to grow a bit of our own food!