Mushrooms are magic

If you haven’t seen Fantastic Fungi on Netflix, add it to your queue right now! The world of mycology is bursting with new information about the magical role mushrooms play in nature, and the potential health benefits for humans. What’s not new to me is how delicious hot chocolate is! It’s amazing to have a turkey tail mushroom recipe that’s truly tasty.

Because I am not a mycologist or nutritionist, I can’t make any claims about nutritional benefits or the exact way to ID these in the wild. However, there have been encouraging studies about the role turkey tail mushroom can play in aiding the cure of breast cancer. Given how little we know about the amazing natural world we live in, I would not be surprised to know that much of our medicine can be found in the woods.

How to ID turkey tail mushrooms

With careful observation, research and responsible harvesting, we collected turkey tail mushrooms in our backyard woods last season. Please consider this company to help with ID. Our mushrooms were growing on fallen wood, were velvety soft to the touch, pliable and had tiny pores on the underside. They also have a beautiful array of brown stripes. After harvesting I simply left them on a drying rack to dehydrate on the counter. When dry, I stored them in a ball jar for winter.

How to use turkey tail mushrooms

Turkey tail mushrooms are not suitable for fresh eating and do not grind well when dried. I found the best turkey tail mushroom recipe is when steeped for tea or soup. They can also be quite dirty at the base where they were attached to the wood, so I use scissors to snip off the ends. I really haven’t noticed any flavor from the turkey tail mushrooms in this recipe, making them an easy way to incorporate medicinal mushrooms into your diet without sacrificing taste.

Two products that get heavy rotation in our house are Oatly oat milk and Crow & Moss drinking chocolate. The directions on the Crow & Moss package result in an insanely rich drinking chocolate, so I cut the amount used by half to enjoy a more regular and lighter treat.

We love the Crow & Moss brand because they are Michigan-based (have you been to Petoskey in Northern MI yet? Plan a road trip… right now!) and they source single origin, organic, direct-trade beans from the Dominican Republic. The beans for this particular drinking chocolate come from Dr. Charles Kerchner’s 1,019 acre bird sanctuary in the mountainous Reserva Zorzal. It’s here that the beans are grown, dried and fermented. If you don’t live nearby, you can order their products online.