Mushrooms!

Lol.  Yes, seems silly, but that is the name of the post.

Over the years, Cass and I have come up with a few labor saving practices that are a little outside the box, so I thought I’d pass this one onto you.  I am particularly lazy, and she is usually game for a go of it to see.

We like to do things in bulk.  Things like buying blocks of mozzarella when it’s on sale, and running it all through the grater at once.  Then we place it on a cookie sheet, freeze it, and vacuum seal it the next day into homemade pizza size portions.  It’s not just the money you save, it’s the time, and to me, the time saved is more important than the money..  ’cause I’m lazy.

Todays’ adventure is sauteed mushrooms, which we discovered we could freeze and serve – without detriment – for months at a time.

This began one very wet year when we had all kinds of mushrooms coming up on our front lawn, some of them being huge and meaty.  I had identification books kicking around, found them described as “choice”, and after making myself the guinea pig and not dying…. or enduring hallucinations, I let the remainder grow to full size, and harvested them appropriately.   My neighbor had Morels (also “choice”) coming up, but wouldn’t part with them….

So, what do you do with a pile of mushrooms?  It’s not like they keep, or anything.  We had learned you could saute a schwack of onions and freeze them into ice-cube trays the years before, so thought, why not try this with mushrooms.?  So we did,  and it went so well, so that we put in into practice for store bought ones also.

First you start with some big packs of mushrooms, on sale of course,  and a few onions.

In two BIG pans, put a good 1/3 of a cup of butter, and a slivered onion.  Saute until softened.  While that is happening, cut up all the mushrooms.  I used our goofy little strawberry cutter for this…

Lazy, remember?

Once most of the water was boiled off, a few shakes of Nutmeg into each pan.  White wine in one…

And Sherry in the other… to tell for sure which we like best.

From there I lined two 9″ x 9″ pans with parchment and pressed them into the bottom as best as I could.  You want them all touching each other so they freeze together.

and now to get them out of the freezer downstairs.

They’re frozen solid, but lift out of the pans easy enough.  Parchment paper is wonderous…

Peel off the paper and cut them into whatever size you think appropriate.  They’re easy to cut because they’re not really solid, with not much water to them.  It’s mostly butter.

This is why you want to press them together for freezing.  There really isn’t much more to it than that.

Bag ’em up!

Don’t forget to label them some way or another.  You’ll forget… and eventually you’ll be standing there looking at it like “who the %*$ put this in the freezer, and what is it?”

Whenever you are having steak for dinner, or a hamburger, or want some extra flavor for your morning hash browns… grab a square and toss it into a pan.  It’s done.  You only need to do the shopping, washing,  cutting, cooking, freezing, and most important, the dishes once!  Yes!

The hardest part is remembering you have them, but they thaw quickly in the microwave if you forget.

Enjoy!