Prepping Fresh Shitake Mushroom For Later Use

I have been cooking noodles for a while, not the instant noodle type. And I tried to make my noodles healthier by adding more ingredients. I saw mushroom and have been wanting to get it, but it's quite big for me. Anyway, after an ok experience with freezing the carrot, I want to try freezing mushroom, it's same theory. 

Normally, my family bought the dried mushroom instead of fresh one. So I was very surprised when I opened the packaging, it's so fragrant, much nicer smell than the dried mushroom. No wonder there's mushroom powder seasoning. 

fresh Shitake Mushroom

I washed it and cut into small pieces. Well, after cutting it, I felt that the quantity is actually not that much. Then I added some cili padi flakes into the mushroom because some people in reddit said that one could season it while blanching. 

cutting into pieces

add some cili padi flakes

After that, I boiled the water in a pot, and after boiled, I poured the mushrooms into the pot and off the induction cooker power, waited for 2 to 3 minutes. The water used to blanch the mushroom was very fragrant too.

blanching the mushroom

Then, I transferred it to another pot with iced water. And let it be to stop the cooking process.

ice bath

After that, I laid the mushroom on a plate and put the plate in freezer section to prevent it to clump together. 

laid on the plate in freezer section

I only put these in a container the next day. Due to I didn't drain the water away, the mushroom is covered with ice, but it's still ok, at least, not clump together. 

transfer to a container

I tried to cook with the frozen mushroom 2 days after. Well, it's still ok, not mushy. OK, next time can try other vegetables for freezing. Hahaha!

noodles cooked with frozen mushroom, edamame, fish balls, carrot

Documentation of the Sweet Potato Growth

Here to document the sweet potato growth.

From the left, grow from vines cutting, middle from small chunk of sweet potato, far right from a small sweet potato tuber.

Early June

13th June

In just a couple of days, the one from sweet potato grew so much from nothing! Can observe many leaves, looked healthy too. The middle one was ok, the leaves were bigger compared to a week ago. The one grew from vine cutting is not so healthy though, barely surviving. 

19th June

It's 27th June and all 3 grows so much over the week.

27th June from Side view

27th June

It's 4th July and the growth is not visible from my eyes. It's growing sideways.

4th July

11th July and there's no visible growth from a week earlier. 

11th July

I purposely singled out the one grew from vines. Although the total leaves were lesser than the other two. It's growing, the leaves looked healthy too.

11th July - grew from vines

18th July, the pass one week was quite dry, no rain. So, I think it didn't grow much.

18th July

Side story, I planted the stems of Malabar Spinach (I know the Chinese name is 皇帝苗, the English name is from Google) along the edge of the pot, and it grew! Apart that it's edible, it's a good looking plant. I like the shape and colour of the leaves. 

皇帝苗 18th July

25th July and the plants looked similar to last week. I read in a novel that one needed to clear some leaves to let the tuber grow. So I pluck some of it. 

25th July Sweet Potato Plants

25th July plucking excess leaves

For the spinach, more leaves are visible. Growing fine. 

皇帝苗 25th July 

1st August, the plants looked so so ok.

1st August

But the spinach looked good. With more leaves.

皇帝苗 1st August

Today is 8th of August. There's no rain for the pass one week. The leaves are a bit yellowish. 

8th August - the leaves looked dry

As usual, the 皇帝苗 looks good though.

皇帝苗 8th August 

Ouch, I have forgotten about this. Today is 29th Aug. It have been 2 weeks since I last updated. The pot is plastic and slowly degrading. The one I planted with a small sweet potato is coming out from soil. And yes, the one planted with small potato didn't grow with new babies. So sad, should have just steam it in the rice cooker and eat it then. 

sweet potato plants 29th Aug

the sweet potato coming from the soil after the pot crack

And below is the last photo for now, we already harvested the leaves. It grew from stem also. 

皇帝苗 29th Aug 

Ouch, I have been busy. So for 19th September. Below are the conditions. The 皇帝苗 have been growing again although we harvested all the leaves. The healthy one is growing well, those that was not so healthy still same, just a few leaves. 

皇帝苗 19th Sept

the neglected sweet potato plants

Well ok, it's 18th October 2026, I plucked all the sweet potato plants, there's no sweet potato tuber on all 3 plants. LOL, I really don't know what triggers the growth of the sweet potato, when I watched all the videos on the planting of sweet potatoes, it's so easy, so effortless. OK, it has been a interesting 4 months though. And spinach is an easier plant.