Chow Vegan

Good Eat • No Meat

Growing BTTR Mushrooms

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Growing BTTR Mushrooms

Long jealous of other people’s bountiful gardens, I’m sad I can’t have my own garden (no place for it and the HOA rules won’t allow even a small balcony one). So when BTTR (it’s pronounced as “better” and stands for Back to the Roots) offered me a chance to grow mushrooms from an indoor kit, I was all over it.

It’s easy enough to set up the kit but for some reason I couldn’t get anything to grow the first go around. A couple of weeks later, on my second attempt with more frequent misting than the two times a day requirement, little pinheads of oyster mushrooms finally popped up.

Growing BTTR Mushrooms

Once those pinheads appear, the mushrooms really start to grow and fast too. In the photo sequence above, on the left is day 1. After 3 days, one small pinhead appeared. 5 days later is the photo in the middle, 24 hours after that is the photo on the right.

The oyster mushrooms that grew, looks a bit different that the ones in the product brochure. Instead of a cluster of mushrooms, mine just grew longer, sorta like king trumpet mushrooms with the big stems and all. Still, they taste amazing, so fresh and delicious.

Growing BTTR Mushrooms

Much to my surprise, after returning from a trip, I found mushrooms growing (see above photo) all by itself. No misting or anything, just sitting on the window sill. I thought it was all done with growing mushrooms but this happened twice after two different trips.

The soil used to grow the mushrooms is 100% recycled coffee grounds from Peet’s Coffee. Afterward, it’s rich compost for plants (when it’s done growing mushrooms for real), closing the recycling/sustainability loop.

Retail price for a kit is $19.95 to grow up to 1 lb/crop. Even though I can get fresh oyster mushrooms for a cheaper price at the local farmers market, it was fun to mist the little baby mushrooms and watch them grow. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in the SF Bay Area, in which case, nothing beats the freshness of growing your own.

Disclosure: I received the BTTR mushroom growing kit free of charge from the manufacturer for review. The opinions and experience with the product expressed herein are my own. There was no pay to say.

Super Easy DIY Pockets

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Super Easy DIY Pockets

Now that I have a dough that I can actually work with, I’ve been making my very own hot pockets. It’s so easy and simple. It’s basically the same dough from VegWeb that I had used for Seitan in a Blanket with just an extra bit of seasonings.

This is totally the dough for me – I don’t have to deal with yeast or anything scary like that. Doesn’t matter if the pockets don’t come out perfect and are sadly misshapen like mine. Let’s just say they’re “rustic”.

The filling can be pretty much whatever you want. I used leftovers, making it super quick as well as getting rid of stuff in the fridge. I made one with pizza sauce, Daiya Mozzarella and sliced seitan dogs. I still had a bit of Cantonese Style Curry hanging around so I used that in the other pocket.

Super Easy DIY Pockets

The topping is King Arthur Flour Everything Bread & Bagel Topping – a blend of poppy and sesame seeds, dried onion, garlic and salt. It’s a little bit on the salty side with the topping. So I tried the dough with and without the salt and it works either way if you’re looking to cut down on the sodium.

Super Easy DIY Pockets
Makes 2 pockets

Crust
1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
Large pinch of bread topping

Filling
Can be anything from

  • pizza sauce, seitan sausage and vegan cheese
  • curry veggies
  • sautéed spinach and mushrooms and vegan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine all of the crust ingredients, except the water and bread topping, in a bowl and mix until it looks like coarse meal. Add a little bit of water at a time, mixing until the dough comes together in a ball (I added less than a 1/4 cup of water).

Sprinkle a bit of cornmeal on the work surface and rolling pin so the dough doesn’t stick. Divide the dough in half and roll it out into a thin circle. The thinness should be based on what you’re planning to fill it with. For the pizza filling, it can be fairly thin; for something like the curry where it’s a bit more chunky, it should be thicker otherwise you start to get holes poking through.

Place the filling on one side, leaving about an 1/2 inch edge, do not over stuff. Carefully bring the other side over the top and press along the edges to seal. Repeat with the other dough half.

Place the pockets on a well-oiled baking sheet and brush the tops with olive oil. Sprinkle with the bread topping. Bake for about 20 minutes until the top and edges are lightly browned and warmed through.