John has arrived home to a shedload of mushrooms! Our evening menu will feature them for many weeks to come. And they keep on popping up everywhere…
Yesterday I found an epic collection of Porcelain fungi growing high up on a beech. Thankfully there was a fallen branch on the ground with plenty on it, too.
They are very slimy and soft, with a sweet flavour that doesn’t resemble ‘mushrooms’ at all. These beauties are all around us at the moment, as we have a lot of beech trees.
Talking of trees, the storms in the weekend have brought down a wonderful carpet of conkers. I picked a bag full on my way to work today. They’re not edible, but eating is not the only thing we do! We also need to do our laundry. And that’s what these brown glistening beauties are perfect for. To make detergent, you first bash them to pieces. John kindly offered to do that:
Then you dry them in a low oven ready for storage. To make up a solution to wash with, soak a handful in water – this water is your detergent. It even foams!
It’s so much better for the environment than supermarket detergents, both the actual liquid as well as the fact that we’re not using plastic bottles. It will not have a ‘detergent smell’, which is great, as I’m not a fan of my clothes smelling of chemical flowers! We will keep you posted on our washing session results. Monday is wash day in the Brady household and this week I’m secretly looking forward to it 🤫.
The healthy forager 