Mushrooms continue to fascinate me. This strange mushroom was growing in Bozeman, MT along a busy downtown sidewalk.
Does anyone out there know what it is?
Comments? Don’t be bashful!
Tag Archives: Mushroom News
Tree Ears
When hunting for mushrooms, you never know what you will find!
I found these Tree Ears, Auricularia auricula, or Wood Ears awhile back and was excited to add them to my jar of dried ones. They weren’t what I was looking for, but a welcome find anytime.
As you can see from the last picture, they shrink up when they dry. The nice thing is they rehydrate to look almost the same as fresh. This mushroom is related to the crunchy mushroom in Asian soups and dishes.
This is a good mushroom to learn because it can be eaten raw in the woods and is a good survival food. Most mushrooms should not be eaten raw and can make you sick. The way to know this one from look alikes is to shake it real hard and it will not fall apart. The main look alike will fall apart with this test. They grow on dead trees, when the weather is wet. All the rain promises me…
The False Morel
I was looking for mushrooms awhile back and found this nice specimen.
This one is known as the Snowbank False Morel, (Gyromitra gigas) and is said to be edible, but I have been advised to not eat it. I think mostly because it is easily confused with other false morels that should not be eaten. A great find either way and I have been to forays where others have found this beautiful mushroom, but this was a first for me!
Drying and Storing Oyster Mushrooms
When you find a good oyster mushroom source, you often find more than you can eat right away. Oysters don’t store or keep very long after picking, so you are better off to store some for those cold winter months. My favorite way to keep mushrooms around is to dry them. After eating my fill of the harvest, and sharing some , I proceded to dry the excess. The process is simple and easy to do! First you clean the mushrooms. This batch was pretty clean since they came off of coffee grounds. I had to rinse them a little and dryed them off on paper towels. The mushrooms were then torn along the gills to a mangeable size. This batch was dryed on racks on the counter for several days.
After a few day of drying the mushrooms looked like this. Notice how they have shrunken up since mushrooms are mostly water!
When drying large amounts of mushrooms or meaty mushrooms, we use a dehydrator. The main thing is to make sure they are completely dry before you jar them up. At this point they go into labeled mason jars for storage. When rehydrating mushrooms you can boil them a bit in water. Make sure you use or save the broth. This is where the flavor is! Rehydrating in milk works well, especially if you are going to flour and fry them or make gravy. I like to throw them in soups or sauces and let them rehydrate in the liquid of the dish. Mushroom soups made from dryed mushrooms are excellent and in most cases, better than fresh mushroom soup. So pick when you can, eat all you can, and store the rest. You will be very happy you did on those months when the mushrooms are not flushing!
Oysters on Cornstalks Update
I was checking on my mushroom beds and thought I should check on my cornstalk project. This project (check former posts on cultivation) was an experiment to see if oyster mushrooms could be grown on cornstalks cheaply with minimal work. The project started out in a tub in my garage and got booted outside because of fungus gnats. It had already fruited proving that it is feasible. The project was outside in the cold and snow when the tub, cornstalks and all , was tipped over in a snow bank. After the snow left, the tub was removed and the project was left to the elements. It did not look very good, but was left to see what it would do. The weather has cooled a little, and the wild oysters are flushing, so it is a good time to check on oyster projects.
As you can see, it is hard to get a good mushroom down! These were a little past prime, but they survived, and the pile will be used to start some other projects. Notice that it looks like something else found them before I did. Those sure look like bite marks on the close up!