Home Canned Mushrooms and Mushroom Stock

While writing about out great road trip/camping adventure, a tangent came along that saw me quite busy processing mushrooms, peaches and pears.  I recently bought 20 lb of mushrooms because we were on another road trip that took us by one of the area mushroom farms.  Produce is always very much being at the right place at the right time.  So, I took advantage of the opportunity.

Mushrooms are a must have in our home.  We go through pounds and pounds of them!   Home canned mushrooms are a convenience pantry product for those rare times when I don't have fresh mushrooms on hand.  This is one of the very few products I make that hovers near the  price of store bought however it is a superior product in comparison to commercially canned mushrooms.  Despite a large number of mushroom farms in North America, commercially canned mushrooms are imported from China.  Unfortunately the food safety issues in China are horrid with report after report of unsafe food originating from there.  While I don't boycott other products made in China, I will not use food grown or produced in China.

Home canned mushrooms are easy to process using a pressure canner.   There is no metallic taste as there is with commercially canned mushrooms.  I put up ten 500 ml jars of home canned mushrooms which used up about 5 lb.  This will be enough home canned mushrooms to last us 6 months.  I make a few stops at the mushroom farm throughout the year so can always restock my pantry supplies as needed.
 

One of the ways a home canner can make a high cost product more economical is canning a by product in addition to the main product.  So it is with mushrooms.  Mushroom stock is a very easy to make stock originating from the preparation of mushrooms for other purposes including home canning.  I canned six 1 - L jars of mushroom stock, a welcomed addition to the pantry.  This rich, tasty stock will be used for soups, stews and gravies.  Six litres will be enough to last us for 6 months.

With mushrooms and mushroom stock canned it was time to move on to other ways to use up the mushrooms.  Trust me, we had no problem doing that!  We went through the entire 20 lbs of mushrooms in less than a week but almost half was preserved for later use.  I'll have to make another trip to the mushroom farm!