Mushroom hunting :)

This is a picture of my morning mushroom haul :)  It consists of Queen Boletes, Birch Boletes, Jersey Cows and Slippery Jacks.  I am not sure on the exact scientific name for Slippery Jacks but that is what we call them and they are pretty easy to identify.  First of all, I must admit that I am a complete amateur to when it comes to cleaning and preparing the mushrooms for eating because I just really enjoying walking in the woods and fields trying to find them.  My wife is the utmost expert on mushrooms, she is Polish so it just comes naturally to her and everyone else in this country to know what all the different mushrooms are, immediately.  For instance, the two yellowish mushrooms in the upper left hand corner are two that I picked while out in the woods and I brought them back for her to identify. She looked at them and instantly gave me the Polish name for them, and we went online and found out that they are known as Jersey Cows :)  The good news about that is that I now know what they are and will start gathering them.  In Poland or California, when hunting mushrooms, you really can't go wrong picking mushrooms that have a sponge underneath them.  The really bad mushrooms that have a sponge underneath will, I think, at most be bitter, ruin a soup, or make you use the restroom more often, but they can also be identified really easily through books and this marvelous thing we call the Internet.  I pick one kind of mushroom that has gills underneath the cap, and it is called a Parasol mushroom or Macrolepiota Procera for the Scientific name.  The Parasol mushroom is fantastic when you pan fry it with some butter. I really cannot begin to describe the buttery flavor and texture that the mushroom ends up with but it makes me smile :)  Preparation for the parasol mushroom includes separating the stem from the cap and cutting the bottom part of the stem that still has the dirt from the forest floor attached.  Then you wipe away any extra sand or dirt you see on the mushroom and get your pan out ready to fry with some butter :) All of my morning mushrooms can be used for soup or stew and their cleaning methods include separating the stem from the cap to check for any unwanted worm damage, cutting the bottom part of the stem to remove the dirt and forest floor, and then scraping along the stem to remove the top layer of crud before putting it into a pot. The Slippery Jack is the only one that requires additional care.  First of all, they call it a Slippery Jack because the cap of the mushroom is actually kind of slimy, which will also help you to identify the mushroom pretty quickly!  So you start out like the Birch, Queen Bolete or Jersey Cow and then you have to peel the skin off of the cap of the mushroom. Peeling the skin off the top of the Slippery Jack is more work but necessary in order to put it into the soup. Actually, I was told, some people don't peel the skin off of the caps which makes the soup gluey. All, I know it's a must in my wife's home as my mother-in-law would not accept it any other way! The Queen Boletes are good for soup, preserving, drying, sauteing or stuffing into pierogi so we do some combination of all the different methods.  BTW pierogi are another fantastic food item that the Polish people do very well and I will be doing a blog entry on the diversity and deliciousness of them later :)