Mushroom Hunting for Gramma

And... we are back to our Gramma trip...

Soo... Gramma can't hike anymore but... we are going to go scope out some of our standard mushroom picking spots and see what we can find. Cocoa's never been mushroom picking sooo... this is a bit of an educational tour as well!

So... we are on the hunt for chanterelle mushrooms which are orange or apricot coloured. Here we found an orange mushroom... Cocoa is examining it carefully but...   

We can already tell it's not the right type of chanterelle mushroom. This one is Turbinellus floccosus, commonly known as the scaly vase, or sometimes the shaggy, scaly, or woolly chanterelle. It isn't what we are looking for. Although this one is mild tasting, it can cause stomach upset (nausea, vomiting, etc). Best to avoid. Plus, these ones are old and bug eaten.

See how the surface looks all scaley...

Onwards!

Oh... wait... what's that there, in the distance, between our ears. That looks promising!

Ah-hah! Orange mushroom... smoothish cap... we have us a chanterelle!

Mama bought herself an Opinel mushroom knife over the winter. It's got a little brush on the end for brushing crud off the mushrooms...

There we go... first pick of the day!

Ah-hah... some more orange mushrooms... but these are more lobster orange and... funnily enough are called lobster mushrooms. They are a fungus on a mushroom. An original Russula gets colonized by the lobster fungus and turns orange and gets a weird shape. Some people like them but we are mushroom snobs...

Onwards!

And now we're on the track... a nice clump here...

And here too...

This is a huge patch but too old. They've gone all frilly and old...

Oooh... pretty one!

A whole trio of them...

What we noticed after a while though was... someone had been there before us!! See the one mushroom but all the cut bits?

Yep, someone went through probably a week or so ago... hmph!

But we know a few extra spots...

Alright Cocoa... here's another orange mushroom... is it a chanterelle??

Well... duh... no!!!

It might be edible... but it might not... so we leave it.

Ah-hah... do you see it?? Just to the right of the cedar? Right below where those 2 branches cross.... a little yellow patch.

What we've noticed here, and at home, is that chanterelles like to hang out with step moss...

Right then, it took us awhile but we've got a goodly amount... one more spot to check out though...

This is fun!!!

***a while later***

Well... we hit the jackpot!! That last spot hadn't been picked by someone else and there were scads of them!!! We got almost a whole bag just in that one spot. Sweet!

And... we get a treat afterwards! Chocolate covered nut cake... yum!!!

Here's part of our haul...

And the rest of them...

Gramma was beary impressed but a bit perplexed by what to do with them all. After all, one can only eat so many mushrooms in a day!

So we cut up about half of them and sauteed them so we could freeze them. Gramma can then pull them out of the freezer to put in soups and stews. Cause mushrooms are good for you, you know!

This might take a while... we can only do so much at once.

We checked our mushroom picking spot at home before we came here but there was nothing happening there yet. Last year we found stuff in mid-late October, so we have to be patient!