Foraging Wild Foods | CHICKEN OF THE WOODS

I had noticed these little mushroons starting to grow on this old stump behind the camper... I thought they looked a lot like the start of Lion's Mane, the mushroom that is good for the brain. Since my sister has been growing it I wanted to send her a photo but I didn't have my phone and then I forgot about it untill a couple days later when I was nicely surprised with these lovelies:

Chicken of the woods!

Oh this has become one of my favorite foods. I watched it grow a little bigger for a few days and decided to cut it down before it got too tough, as it does with age.

The almost 5 year old human in the family decided he wanted to put them in a box so theu would all be together, easy to bring to the kitchen and ready to process! I figured it's probably good for his growth and interaction with foraged food to let him deal with it like that. He was reminded to wash his hands afterwards, and I was reminded that he knew to do so...😁.

We cooked up a couple small pieces, as he had never had it and it is wise (even with chicken of the woods) to eat a small amout, wait 24 hours and make sure you aren't that one who is alergic to it.

We were all fine the next day, so I cooked the rest. We ate about half of what we colected and the rest I froze. I am reading that cooking chicken of the woods before freezing it is the better way to conserve it. If it is frozen raw, the water molecules break that chicken texture that it has. I cannot attest to this yet, we haven't had the rest yet.

But I will let you know how it thaw out, when we do 😍.