Foraging in the fields. Tuesday, March 31 2015

Last week we had a nice drop of rain and I noticed a few white spots in the neighbours paddock as I drove past. So on the weekend, I went a-wandering around a few of the paddocks here, hopeful that I might get lucky and find some mushrooms. Well find them I did! For the first time in about 5 years, I found lots of them! I think it must be a combination of conditions. Perhaps a long dry summer with early autumn rains when the daytime temperatures have still been reasonably warm.

On Saturday I picked a dozen or so in the paddock where I last found them in abundance in 2010. Then on Sunday I tried another paddock where the dairy effluent spray has been going and I picked over 2.5 kg! Yesterday in the late afternoon, I went and had another look in the same paddock and picked another 800g! So this week we are having mushrooms in many incarnations for dinner. Beef stroganoff, mushroom and broad bean pilau, mushroom and tomato frittata so far. I also cooked up quite a few and have frozen them for other meals in the future. Yum!

Can't beat the taste of fresh mushies!