Now I am 90% Hillbilly....

Mushrooms galore...


Last Friday I was driving to church to play at a conference, and as I passed the Hurricane exit I noticed these mushrooms in the yard where there are trees, but noting else. You know the place where they have grass to mow instead of just throwing wild flower perennials to grow back every year so the nice tax payers of WV don't have to pay for someone to mow the grass beside the interstate. but that is beside the point. I passed the exit and lo and behold I spot these mushrooms from afar and decide it is worth stopping and checking them out. I was running late to the church so I stopped on my way back at dusk. there were about 10-12 parasol mushrooms (Lepiota rachodes) as big as the ones in the picture. The caps were about 10"-12" inches wide.Yes they are edible, and quite tasty if I don't say so myself.

I have to type the disclaimer here, and this is serious. You could die if you ate the wrong mushroom. Really. You have to be 100% on the identification before eating them or you could become paralyzed and die. seriously.
If you would like to do you own research, I would start here. and then check this book out from the library I started to look and found book this interesting too. The more research you do, obviously the better your chances are of staying alive. All kidding aside do be careful.

Steph sauteed the first batch and then made a soup with the rest. You can freeze mushrooms but you need to cook them first then freeze. you can't throw them in the freezer without doing anything with them. Wild man Steve Brill has nothing but good things to say about "wild" anything but especially mushrooms you can't go wrong with eating these. (The ones you've correctly identified, of course.) Each has their one flavor but these were nice, and that Soup she made was absolutely amazing. I finished the rest of the big bowl and stuffed myself because it was so good.

We picked up more puffballs from a yard somwhere today the kids picked them up and I am sure we will have a nice free feast tonight.