Field Mushrooms

Inspired (and somewhat motivated) by Anna Grace's recent blog post about her mighty haul of field mushrooms, I went looking.

I picked a rather motley handful.  Some were eaten straight away and some I fried and froze.  I kept thinking I should make the effort to go looking earlier in the morning, when they're first poking their heads up and before all the little mites and gnats and beasties have sampled them.

Then last night, we picked up a borrowed bull.  As I was driving him down to the paddock where my girls were impatiently waiting, I noticed some field mushrooms.  I stopped to pick some.  After introducing Munroe to my girls and convincing them all to go back into the paddock instead of running up and down the race, I walked back with Miss Eight considerably slower this time.  We made it back to the house with hands full of field mushrooms.

About a third of todays pickings

I had to work a little to convince her to leave some behind - I was trying to explain that you never take them all or they won't grow back.

Field Mushroom in the paddock

Hubby and Miss Eight had mushrooms with their steak last night and I was left with plenty to process this morning.  I'm allergic to mushrooms, so it's their thing.

This morning, while feeding the chooks, I spotted a rather large field mushroom poking it's head up beside the chook house.  So it was off into the paddocks with knife, bucket and dog I went.

While down the gully, I noticed quite a variety of interesting looking mushrooms and fungi.  For the sake of my own curiosity, I've spent a bit of time trying to identify some of them - and if some are edible then that's even better :)

Possibly a Shaggy Parasol Mushroom

Earthstar Mushrooms - inedible type of puffball

The Shaggy Parasol Mushrooms are edible (according to this Wikipedia entry), but can cause issues if eaten raw or uncooked.  Some people have severe allergic reactions to the cooked ones too.  They're also very similar to a toxic variety, although I can't find a reference to the toxic variety growing in New Zealand.  Mushroom Expert gives a very comprehensive identification guide.



The Inky Cap is a fascinating wee beastie.  The very young fresh mushrooms are edible, although they have a very short shelf life - as in hours - before they digest themselves and turn black.
Again, Wikipedia has a great entry on them.  This Youtube video - timelapse photography of one of these growing and then digesting itself - is just amazing.

Possibly a variety of Inky Cap Mushroom

Galerina toadstools - so tiny and delicate seeming

All up today and last night (well, what wasn't eaten last night), I've picked 1 kg of field mushrooms.

Now to save them.

Before I got my dehydrator, I looked into ways to preserve mushrooms.  We were given a boxful of button mushrooms several years ago and as Hubby was the only person in the house at the time who ate them, we needed to do something.

I found a very simple way to deal with them and it's one that Hubby and now Miss Eight adore.
Slice them up and fry them in butter - like you would if you were going to eat them straight away.  Let them cool, then bag them and freeze them in serving size amounts.  They take only a few minutes in the frypan to heat through and taste (so I'm told) just as good as if they were fresh.

Still unidentified, little yellow toadstools that I find frequently