Dehydrating works great and they store well once dried. That;s my favorite solution.

Dave

I like them pickled and vinegar and spices like garlic and oregano.

These are great ideas. I just spent the morning with my 4yr old stringing up the pickings from this morning while they were still nice and firm.
I love the idea of pickling with oregano, which I just harvested, and garlic (my Dad's favorite thing to grow). It'd be nice to dump a jar of those into some lasagne, spagetti or any italian dish! Thanks!

Jackie

If course I used vinegar in these, as they are pickled. I didn't want to take any chances and try to use any oil in the marinade though, as that an make then suseptable to botulism. Wish I could grow mushrooms outdoors, but the only luck I had was with some mushoom growing kits in my basement, in cardboard boxes that were covered with black plastic to keep out light (white button type). You must have some very fertile soil or growing medium for them to grow outside. It has to be in the deep woods too where its cool and damp all the time.

No, its not! I live out in the open. We just had a lot of humid air and damp rain. They are growing in my yard where some major work was done replacing town water pipes. I believe its the mulch they used to encourage lawn growth that produced these tender little mushrooms. I can't pass them up!

I like those box kits. That is the Christmas gift that keeps on giving in our family! BG

I thought about the oil too, and disregarded that. I think I'll try filling the jars with the 'shrooms, then fill with a brine of water, vinegar, oregano, and garlic. What do you think?

Jackie

I, like Dave like to dehydrate mushrooms. If you are a cream of mushroom soup fan, here's a little trick. Put a handful of dehydrated mushrooms in an electric coffee grinder and grind them to a powder...and I mean a powder! When you saute your onions and celery for the soup, add the powder when the onions turn translucent and stir for a bit until the mixture looks like mud. Then add your stock and other mushrooms, sherry, whatever, and simmer for 20 minutes or so. Then you can go ahead and add your cream, roux, whatever your recipe calls for.

The powdered mushrooms give the soup an incredible flavor boost, and help thicken it a bit too.

As for canning, I can't remember where I first got this recipe, but it's a great mushroom pickle.

Boil 3/4 cup lemon juice in 6 cups of water with a handful of fresh herbs (your choice) and several cloves of garlic. Add about a pound and a half of mushrooms (I like the bittie ones for this, but you can halve or quarter larger ones). Simmer the mushrooms for 5 minutes or so, depending on the size...they should be cooked, but still firm, plump and light skinned. Then drain off the liquid and put them into a marinade made of equal parts of rice wine vinegar and water, with 3/4 tspn of pickling salt per cup of marinade.

Leave the mushrooms soaking in the fridge at least over night, though I have left them for several days when I got too busy without ill effect.

When you're ready to can, drain the mushrooms and pack into sterilized jars, adding a sprig or two of herbs for extra flavor and decorative value (I have included a thin slice or two of lemon as decoration too with no problems, but I don't know if one is really considered safe to put raw lemon in or not, perhaps one of the veteran canners can tell us), and cover the mushrooms with olive oil, leaving 1/2 an inch of headspace.

Be careful about wiping the rims, because the oil can easily prevent a good seal.

20 minutes in a boiling water bath, and don't open up a jar for at least a few weeks to let the flavors settle.

Heyyy Rachelellen! We sure have been taught that oil in canned and marinated products can be botulism unsafe - here and on all the other canning groups i learn from. I have seen some with very small amounts of oil that are designated USDA safe. Will experts chime in here??

I dehydrate plenty of mushrooms, as a friend has a sizeable mushroom farm not far away. I heartily agree with the mushroom powder product being GREAT! Not only for flavoring soups and stews, but it makes part of an excellent meat rub for wild game. A favorite is to take a venison roast that has been soaked/marinated in either wine or oj, stud with many garlic cloves, followed by a packed-on rub of mushroom powder, some salt and pepper. I really pack this on kind of thickly. Then, some high quality platter bacon laid over the entire top of the roast, then cook to medium-rare. A great use of the mushrooms!
Enjoy your bounty,
Glad

Jacky-

Please see my post on the Pennsylvania Forum.

But in brief, if you are not a very experienced mushroom hunter, DO NOT EAT THOSE MUSHROOMS. You could easily kill yourself and your daughter. I could not identify what mushroom was in the picture (and definitely not as something that is an easier edible), so I am very concerned that you said that was your mushroom. Never eat a wild mushroom unless you are 110% sure on its identification and preferably have a second opinion from someone else with experience.

Bellatrix

I worked in the highland forest areas of central Africa, where gobs of edible mushrooms of all sizes and flavors were everywhere in the rainy season for next-to-nothing, a 25 lb sack for $0.50. There was one huge, edible variety that the kids used as umbrellas. One of the better ways we found to 'conserve' some of the bounty was a 'catsup', the traditional meaning of the word being a salted extract. We'd clean the mushrooms as best we could, then sprinkle with salt, and let set several hours / overnight in a covered crock until the moisture and flavor was extracted by the salt. Filtered through a cotton sheet, we'd get the remaining dirt out, mix it 1/2 - 1/2 with white wine vinegar, and can it. Very good stuff.

Hey Glad, I had not heard that about oil in canning, but I would appreciate hearing from some of the other canners on this subject. This is the only recipe I have that calls for olive oil being the liquid in canned items. I have not had any problem with my oil canned, pickled mushrooms, but I also have no desire to poison anyone, being that I give a lot of my canned goods as gifts!

Did these mushrooms just appear? Or are you saying you cultivated them from spores? If they just spontaneously sprang up, let me repeat the warning by Bella Trix above:

DO NOT EAT THEM.

What you are risking is not just ordinary food poisoning; it is death.

Does anyone know anything about canning 'shrooms in olive oil? I have quite a few jars in my cabinet, and am now too worried to give them out!

Do NOT use any oils in home cannning. Oils will prevent a food from being properly home canned. This apples to any oil type with any vegetable, be it olive oil as marinades, or cured in oils like olives. Oils can go rancid and will also prevent the foods from being properly processed for things like botilism. If you have made home canned item and they are in oil (even if its jut 10%), they are unsafe to eat. When I do mushrooms, they go in a vinegar and herb brine with added pickling salt ONLY. If I want oil, then it can be added after they are opened, but they must be refrigerated and can only stay there a couple of weeks.