Puffballs hold the record for producing more potential life than any other living thing on earth. A single average-sized puffball can produce as many as seven trillion spores. Motor Skill Development: Enhance hand-eye coordination and improve grip strength through interactive play.

Stress Relief: For those with fidgety fingers or anxiety, these balls act as a calming tool, offering a soothing tactile experience that can help focus and de-stress the mind. You can put thin slices in a food dehydrator to make dried puffballs, like you can do with other types of mushrooms. Then you can re-hydrate them and add them to recipes as needed.To extend the life of your puffballs, you need to chill them as soon as possible. If you get them in the fridge right away, they should have a great shelf life. The puffball slices need to be cooked and dried out slightly before using them as the crust base, to make them firm enough and ensure they don't give off too much moisture to the pizza. There are several ways you can prepare them:

Cut the required amount of slices from the puffball, and peel or cut off the outer skin. Brush each side of the slice with olive oil.

Amazingly, the meat of some pufferfish is considered a delicacy. Called fugu in Japan, it is extremely expensive and only prepared by trained, licensed chefs who know that one bad cut means almost certain death for a customer. In fact, many such deaths occur annually. Population The safest of all UK mushrooms to identify, is also the best tasting in the Puffball family; the Giant Puffball, Calvatia gigantia. It has no look-a-likes when mature, and will provide a decent sized meal from just one mushroom. Although you don’t need to worry about finding the right species of tree to plant them under at least.

You can attempt it anywhere, but it’s best to place the spores somewhere similar to the environment where you found the original puffball if possible. Lay the coated puffball fries onto an ungreased cookie sheet, not touching each other. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until the crust is golden, or fry them in a skillet in several tablespoons of oil, turning to fry each side until golden brown.

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So to summarize, if it’s pure white inside and doesn’t have any sign of gills, it’s a puffball. Anything else and it’s either a toxic species or too mature to eat. How To Forage For Puffball Mushrooms First find a mushroom without gills, spines or pores under the non existent cap! Basically, find a mushroom that either looks like a ball or a ball with an elongated stem. Pictured right are young Stump Puffballs. Puffball spores were also used in Native American folk medicine as a coagulant to slow bleeding and help blood to clot.

Like I’ve already alluded to, the two big things that you’ll want to watch for are correctly identifying the puffballs, and making sure they’re at the right age when they’re still edible. 1. Locating Puffballs So trying to grow puffballs is quite hard, but not impossible. But if you really want to see if you can make it work, it doesn’t hurt to try. Here is how you can try to grow your own puffball mushrooms: I’ve also heard of people crushing dried puffballs into powder and using it as a substitute for flour to make flatbreads. Although I haven’t tried it myself. Medical Benefits of Puffballs If you don’t want to eat the skin, it peels off pretty easily. You can either use your fingers or a sharp knife to remove it.Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the puffballs and sprinkle with the parsley. Toss and add more salt to taste, if desired. There are a few puffballs that have a stalk, but none of these are edible as they are all tough and woody in texture. One example is the false shaggy mane mushroom. In Chinese medicine, puffball mushrooms are called Ma Bo and they’re similarly used to treat bleeding and hemorrhages. In a third shallow bowl or pie plate, stir together the Parmesan cheese, cornmeal, garlic powder, and pepper.