I found one of these while I sifted through the dead leaves:
and I found many delicate ferns pushing through the ground:
But, no matter how hard I looked, I never found any of the molly moochers. What is a molly moocher? It is another name for morel mushrooms. They are easily identified. Here is a picture or one hiding in the leaves.
They are hard to find. They blend in with the surrounding leaves. Here is a picture my son took with his cell phone. He says there are three of them in this picture. Can you find them?
My two sons found around 18 between the two of them. I never found any.
There are many places on line to find out about these delicious mushrooms. This site is a good one. There are many ways to fix them and many ways to prepare them. You will find many different opinions. So, just take your pick on how you want to do them. We cut them in half lengthwise and soaked them in salt water. We only soaked them for about an hour or so. This kills the pesky, tiny bugs that inhabit them. Some people soak them overnight.
We took ours out of the salt water and rinsed them thoroughly. We laid them out on a wet paper towel and covered them with another wet paper towel and kept them in the fridge overnight.
We cooked them for supper today. I did it the easy way of just coating them with flour and frying them in oil for a few minutes.
They may not look very good, but they are mmmmm, mmmmm delicious. The best mushrooms you will ever eat.
This is the time to look for them. They grow in the woods. Look in damp areas around old fallen trees. You may want to get a stick and push the leaves around a little. My sons found them sticking up out of the leaves. Take your time and keep looking, as you saw in the picture above they are hard to find. Don't pull them up. Pinch or cut them off.
Good luck. Have fun mushroom hunting!
