Friday, September 23, 2011

Shrooms

All that talk about Vietnam and thinking about left handed cigarettes must have put me in the mood for something else!  Thought we could talk Shrooms instead.

NOT!  How about mushrooms then?  The edible kind!

Every Fall, our neighbor walks the woods that line our properties and hunts these down:
Pint jar for scale.
I have never seen anything like it!  It's a Sheepshead.  In some parts- Hen of the Woods.  Isn't it amazing?

Never having seen one and knowing nothing about it, I hit the web and found that this is one exception to the rule...you have to soak it for one hour. 

So I knocked the dirt off, broke it up and soaked it.  In both sides of my sink!  Then I rinsed it real good and layed it out on a bath towel on my kitchen counter to dry enough for packaging.

From everything I read, Sheepshead is best preserved frozen or dehydrated as a secondary method.  So I did both.  I had 12 pounds of mushroom afterall!  That is way more than I would buy in a year, so I was very thankful for our neighbor thinking of us!

I bagged about 3/4 of it up and froze.  When you cook these, apparently you do NOT thaw first.  You just throw the frozen mushrooms into your hot saute pan (yes, preheated). 

After dehydrating, I filled 1 Qt and 1 Pint with dried shroom.  They smell great!

We did have steak with sauteed Sheepshead and onion too...YUM!

And for those of you who speculate on wild mushrooms (as you should!), if you don't hear from me for a while...well now ya know!

;)

9 comments:

  1. Oooh! I had some last night for dinner (not with steak - with quinoa pasta. meh). They are delish! Of course, mine was not nearly 12 lbs. And I didn't get them from a nice, generous neighbor. BUT they were great. I dehydrate lots of mushrooms, as they are great to toss in soups and stews.

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  2. Oh, how I wish I knew how to ID mushrooms. We have several kinds growing around here, but even after checking book against book against online picture, they still look "kinda" different. And I never eat them. Guess no mushrooms is better than "kinda" alive I suppose.

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  3. What a prize! I know nothing about wild mushrooms but do love mushrooms in general and cook with them a lot. Papa Pea says when he has time (!), he really wants to learn about all kinds of wild foods. I hope he can find someone knowledgeable to teach him about mushrooms!

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  4. nummy,save some!I thought you were leaving on a trip,must be a different APG,HA,HA,HA-NOW DON'T LET THEM HUGE WINGS SCARE YOU NONE-THEY WILL PREVENT ANY DAMAGE TO THE BIG MOBILE---SEAT BELTS REQUIRED THO BECAUSE SOMETIMES ANGELS TAKE OFF QUICKLY AND BREAK EVEN QUICKER

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  5. We're so jealous. We've talked about harvesting wild mushrooms, but it's risky without someone to help you. What a blessing to have a friend like yours.

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  6. I know nothing about those shrooms either, but wow I bet that is a good find for those "in the know"! Sounds great sauteed with steak. Now, don't you have a major out of state field trip to get ready for? LOL...

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  7. Yowzers, girl, that thing is HUGE!! I know nothing about wild mushrooms, and would be too scared to eat any without the knowledge of an experienced shroomer. Way to go and yippy skippy for you!! Enjoy your mushroom for the next year or two.
    ~~Lori

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  8. Mmmm, I love mushrooms. We have tons of different types of fungi around here, but I don't have a clue as to how to begin identification. So far they're just pretty to take pictures of.

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