Mushroom Monday - Mushrooms in the Hand

Here are a few mushrooms I've picked from 2021 for this #mushroommonday

First we start off with the most prized mushroom around where I live, blonde morels. I only found around 10 this last year and this is one of the first I picked. Hopefully this year I will find many more.

Here is a piece of dryad's saddle that I picked to test if the mushroom was still tender enough to harvest. When you can break off a piece like this the mushroom is still edible. If not piece breaks off then the mushroom is probably too spongy to eat.

I also found plenty of splitgill in 2021. I collect these small pieces over time to use later for a larger meal.

Sometimes I even eat them raw while I'm hiking in the woods.

Here are some common finds after a rain, amber jelly roll and witch's butter (the yellow one). I collect these over time and dry them for use in soup.

Here is a strange polypore Lentinus arcularius. I find these in early spring and they are listed as inedible because they are tough and spongy but not poisonous. I read somewhere these can be pickled to make them edible so maybe this year I'll try doing that.

Here is some stereum ostrea aka false turkeytail. This stuff is all over the place here and it comes in quite a variety of colors just like true turkeytail. So far there is no use for these medicinally, but they look cool. This one had an interesting metallic copper sheen to it.

Here are some tiny winter mushrooms that shriveled in the cold winter wind. I picked these to look at their darker stem to make sure they were not deadly galerina. They eventually ended up in a soup.

Sometimes I find things that look like a mushroom from a distance. I thought these were some kind of cup fungi until I got closer and saw they were just acorn tops.

Here is another strange find. It is a wooly bear caterpillar, I find them all the time in fall while mushroom hunting.

Here are some inside grown mushrooms in my hand. I raised some golden oysters and this is one of the multiple harvests I got from the sawdust block kit. So far the golden oysters have been the most successful at growing indoors as they gave me multiple blooms compared to other oyster kits like blue oysters and pink oysters.

I also found an old photo of a lion's mane I grew from a kit. These are very easy to grow indoors as well. They have a very mild taste and have a similar texture as crab meat when cooked. I find that they need lots of spices to make them taste like anything but they have quite a bit of nutritional value and medicinal value for the brain.

That's all for now, more mushrooms in the hand soon...