It’s mushroom hunting season around the area and this year seems like it’s going to be a bumper crop!
If you’ve never had fresh mushrooms before from the timber – well I’m kinda feeling bad for you. I’ll give the recipe later in the post and then you’ll know why they are sooooo good and you’re missing out!
Now if you’re asking yourself if I actually went out to the timber and found these mushrooms myself – well the answer is no. But my brother is an awesome mushroom hunter and every year he drops off about two meals worth for me to eat. The good thing about cooking them up in our house is that no one else likes them much except for me. Yea… can you say SCORE! Whoo hooo!!
What you have to do is to go find a certain tree (not sure which kind) and on one side of the tree (not sure which side) and in certain weather (I think when it’s sunny but not too hot) OK, as you can tell I’m not a good mushroom hunter. If I can’t find a mushroom patch in let’s say the first 10 minutes I would rather give up and look for frogs or something. Patience isn’t something that is a strong point for me. But with two bags full and keeping a secret the good spots to hunt – I appreciate having my brother stop in every year with some for me.
So here is the recipe : I take the mushrooms and cut them in half and soak them in salted cold water overnight. Now I’m not saying that over the years I probably haven’t eaten an ant or some kind of small bug or two and if you don’t do this step, well you might be eating some ants also. So just for giggles I looked up on the internet how many bugs people actually do eat and man oh man am I sorry that I did!
Check it out – “The Food and Drug Administration has surprisingly specific guidelines about exactly how many bug parts can be in certain foods. Your 8-ounce (226-gram) glass of orange juice, for example, can legally contain five fruit flies. There could be 50 aphids, mites or thrips plus some caterpillar larvae in 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of frozen spinach. Thrips, tiny winged parasites that are up to an eighth of an inch long, hang out in apple butter, and frozen asparagus, broccoli and Brussels sprouts [source: FDA]. And that’s just for starters.”
Yea… so gross. Kinda wish now that I didn’t look that up.
Wow did I really get off the subject there. OK, back to the mushrooms. So I know that there are usually tiny ants in mushrooms so into salt water they go to soak overnight. Then the next day, you wash them off and your’e ready for the next step.
This step is to get out some crackers, butter, and eggs. 
Whip the eggs and crush the crackers. Now put some butter in the pan and then put some more in the pan. (Here is where the meal gets a little calorie heavy) After you dunk the mushroom in the eggs, coat it in the crackers and then fry it until golden brown in the butter. 
Now depending how many you’re going to do in a meal, you might have to replenish the butter in the pan at least once while you are cooking 🙂
Now a little salt and pepper to finish it off and bon appetit!