The Mushrooms Workout

Hello, my friends! I hope everyone had a great week and weekend. To kick off the new week on the positive, this is The Workout of the Week, from GoodAttitudeFood.com. This is The Mushrooms Workout.

In The Post…

Coming up in the post I hit on the topic from last week about how cool it is to be walking around in the fall in MN. I found myself a pretty cool treasure, and am cooking and eating it. More about that “treasure” coming up. You know there is a new Pics of the Week video. AAAaaannd, you know we got a workout!

Pics of the Week

Before we get too far into it, you know we got a new Pics of the Week video! Check it!

Walking in the Fall

If you read the post last week, it was all about walking in the Fall. This week, I did a lot of just that. And I got a cool reward for my efforts – a real nice Hen of the Woods bloom. The Fall in MN is a great time to forage for mushrooms!

According to Wikipedia, Hen of the Woods is also know as Ram’s Head or Sheep’s Head. The proper name is Grifola frondosa. These are a choice wild edible mushroom. I actually found two of them yesterday, but only harvested one because it was all I could carry.

My Mushroom Fascination

My mushroom fascination started when I was a kid and I found a patch of morel mushrooms under “my pine tree” in our back yard one day.

As a kid, I was always climbing the pine tree in my back yard. It was a big, long needle pine. Not sure an exact species but it was was a long needle pine. And it was tall and beautiful.

One winter, an ice storm came in and hit the tree hard. It lost many branches. Last I knew, the tree is standing today.

*Mom – got any pictures of my tree? Before and After the ice storm?

Back to before the ice storm…

Someone else had nailed some boards to sit on up in the tree. Three boards to be exact. Each about 10 feet higher than the last.

The middle board was “my spot”. The spot I went to in order to get away from the world, the bullies, and other things. It was one of my places to hide when playing hide and go see. It was my look-out spot. The source of many imaginary adventures in the little world I made in the awesomely huge back yard we had when I was a kid.

One day I remember climbing down the tree and seeing something weird on the ground.

Brains?

I thought it looked like a small brain growing out of the ground.

And then I noticed more.

And then, I saw “a ton” of whatever these brain things were. Several of these things were popping up on the ground in the pine needles under my tree.

I think I was scared. And I think I ran to the house yelling that I found some weird alien thing or something …

My memory is a little fuzzy, but I remember getting my mom to come to look at what I found.

The Morel of the Story

Long story short, the “Brains”, were really a nice patch of Morel mushrooms.

Delicious Meal Into Minor Fascination

The morels were a delicious meal.

I have had a minor fascination with mushrooms since that day when I found the morel under my pine tree.

I think mushrooms are one of the most unique things in nature. The Joe Rogan Podcast has had Paul Stamets on it a few times. Listening to Paul’s talk about mushrooms reignited my childhood interest. In my disc golf adventures, I have come across some cool mushrooms. I found a Chicken of the Woods on one of “my home courses”. Now I have also found two Hens on a disc golf course! (sorry not giving away my spot!

Found a Hen

I was discing the other day, saw this “thing”, was like, “what is that?”…

The thing looked like a giant pine cone.

I kicked it, very softly, and realized it was something else. It was “spongy”. It was a mushroom.

I took a pic and sent it to a couple of Kids in the Crew, Siri and Em, who together make up “SirEmilry”, and who are mushroom hunters and fans.

They told me “That’s a Hen, Dude!”

No Knife.

I didn’t have a knife or bag so I could not harvest this prize at the time. I marked the spot

Mushroom Hunting on Saturday

On Saturday one of the Kids in the Crew and I went to a park (sorry cannot give away the spot) to hunt for these same mushrooms; Hen of the Woods. We had quite the adventure walking through some pretty sweet terrain and forest.

Unfortunately, we didn’t find any edible mushrooms.

I did get some sweet pictures of some other cool mushrooms we saw. It was also a beautiful day to be out on a nature hike, which is really what mushroom hunting is.

After a few hours with no edibles found, we decided to go hit a disc course instead.

Plymouth Creek

We stopped at Plymouth Creek Woods DGC. Once one of my favorite courses, Em and I soon realized something had happened at the course. A massive redesign that cut out holes 2, 3, and, 4 had happened recently.

Some construction project has taken over what was those holes and leveled the woods that used to be there.

It is like a whole different park!

They have some extra unused space in the park. Maybe they will redesign and build it back again. As of now, it’s playable. It’s still beautiful, what’s left of it. Just not the same park though…

Sunday

Sunday morning I went back to the spot I found the Hen but didn’t have my knife. To my amazement no one had found it.

It was literally on the disc golf course. The course is busy. It was busy Sunday morning,

I was “tryna roll incognito” so I didn’t let others on to the spot. I pretended to be looking for a disc. While doing so I scoped around for more mushrooms.

That is when I found the bigger Hen. Wow that is beautiful.

Of course, I forgot to bring a cloth bag that I was going to use. All I had was my disc bag, filled with discs, and a plastic bag. Not having very much carrying capacity, I decided to leave the bigger Hen. When the coast was clear, I harvested the first one I had found.

There may be a return trip for that bigger Hen. Although the Turkeys might chase me off! There are a bunch of wild turkeys living right there in the park too. At one point they had me surrounded and I had to fend them off… haha. I think they wanted the Hen I was harvesting!

Clean, Soak, Trim

When I got the Hen home, I started rinsing, soaking, cleaning, and trimming.

This was is a very nice, young, clean Hen of the Woods! The meat of the mushroom is perfect.

Sauteed Some

I sauteed a bit of it up last night with butter and garlic. I ate a few pieces as a side dish to some rice and beef shank that I made in the Instant Pot yesterday.

The Hen sauteed in butter was pretty tasty! I might have over-cooked it a little bit. I didn’t want to undercook it. It was a nice side dish for my rice and beef meal.

*As of editing and finalizing this post on Monday morning, I have no adverse stomach issues since trying to Hen of the Woods.

Be Careful When Trying

It is always a good idea to start slow trying wild edible mushrooms. I have never had a Hen of the Woods before and am not totally sure how it will agree with me.

As a good practice, try a little bit of a wild mushroom and then see how you react to it. Some advice said to try only a small amount and always ensure wild mushrooms are well-cooked. Do not eat wild mushrooms raw.

When trying, start small. Then wait 24-48 hours before eating anymore, only after confirming you didn’t have an adverse reaction.

Eat What You Can Identify

The best tip anyone can take if they consider foraging for wild edible mushrooms is to only eat what you can identify. If you are not sure what mushroom you are looking at, do not eat it. Poisonous and Edible mushrooms can look similar. Most do have specific traits and if you know what to look for it’s not difficult to spot the edibles like Hen, Morel, Chicken, and Oyster mushrooms. If you know what to look for, it can be easy to identify the lookalikes as well.

YouTube

Watch some YouTube videos about foraging for mushrooms. There are som many great ones!

Or if your a little more old fashioned, get a few books that help identify mushrooms.

Or do both.

Just don’t go try to forage for wild edibles and eat a mushroom that you cannot 100% identify. If you do not know what it is, do not consume that mushroom!

On To The Workout…

As always, do a dynamic warm-up before starting any workout or sport. I do the one from FightTips as posted many times before.

Mon, Wed, Fri

Shadow Boxing Tabata Burners with weighted gloves. 3 Tabata rounds. Interval timer set to 8 x 20X10. Work hard for 20 seconds doing punch and kick combos. Recover for 10 seconds do d-moves. Repeat through the set. Take up to a one minute break. Repeat for 3 rounds. FIIT principles.

7,000 steps and a yoga video.

Tues, Thurs, Sat

Sandbag Intervals with the RDX Fitness bag. 20 minute or longer bike ride. 7k steps on at least two of these days.

Disc

You know I am gonna throw some Disc Golf any time I get the chance.

Wrap…

That’s a wrap my friends. Thank you so much for reading. I hope everyone has a great week!

Be happy and healthy my friends. Be the Hero or Heroine in your story!