Do You Like Oysters?

Oyster mushrooms, that is?  My wife has made oysters (the shellfish) off limits for me, unfortunately.  I loved fried oyster po-boys, but one time we had a sack of oysters that we were shucking and eating raw on the half shell.  I ate a bunch of them.  I don't know what happened, but I began to have an allergic reaction.  My neck swelled up and I was having difficulty breathing.  I took some benadryl and a scary drive to the hospital before everything subsided.

Oyster mushrooms are still okay on the menu, though, and it is a good thing because a friend of ours had been foraging for mushrooms in the woods close to the bayou and dropped off several paper bags full of oyster mushrooms that he had cut from the stumps of willow trees.  Here's the top of one to show you the size:

And here is the bottom:

They were picked right after a rain.  The shrooms were clean and heavy.  Tricia promptly cut them up and sautéed them down in a cast iron skillet.

They were delicious!

We made a rice dressing and added some mushrooms to that recipe and it turned out good.  With so many mushrooms, we began looking for ways to preserve them without them going bad.  We read that Oyster mushrooms do not dry well, but we decided to give it a shot anyway.  The oysters were cut up and placed in the dehydrator.

The next day they were perfectly dried!

As a bonus, this friend of ours found some "Ear Mushrooms."  I'll bet you can tell why they are named Ear Mushrooms!  

We had never eaten ear mushrooms before and were eager to see what they were all about.  They were sautéed in a little oil.

They had a nice taste to them.  Once springtime comes, we'll go out foraging for our favorite mushrooms that grow in the area - Chanterelles!