KandyToys Kandy Toys TY1683 Big Eye Puffer Ball-6 Assorted Colours

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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 Focus & Calm: Acts as a great fidget tool to help individuals concentrate and offer a sense of calm. Besides tasting great, puffballs also have medicinal benefits. They contain a substance that’s capable of inhibiting the growth of lung cancer cells and other tumors. It’s not all bad news with the spores though, smithies used to keep Puffballs in the forge to help heal burns and as a styptic to stop bleeding. As it turns out they knew what they were doing; these spores are antibacterial, antifungal and antimicrobial, fighting Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli (the list goes on) as effectively as the antibiotic Ampicillin! Carefully cut the puffball at the base, and put a piece of cardboard or paper towel on the base to keep any spores from falling out.

Puffballs aren’t a single species, but instead they’re a broader group of mushrooms comprised of several different genera including Bovista, Calvatia, Handkea, Lycoperdon, and Scleroderma. Puffballs look unlike most other types of mushrooms since they don’t have gills. Young ones are solid balls of spongy tissue. cups (720ml) pasta sauce (tomato-based or cream-based) - a 650ml (22oz jar) +¼ cup (60ml) of the pasta cooking water works fine, too Puffballs are a ‘Decay Fungus’ and play a massively important role in the care of our environment. Along with the likes of Oyster Mushrooms and Honey Fungus, they are one of the few living organisms that are able to breakdown and encourage decomposition of the toughest material in wood; Lignin. Without them, our planet would be covered in fallen trees and organic matter to such a depth, it would be extremely slow and difficult to continually break it all down.

Add a pinch of salt to the water to help keep any bacteria at bay, and a teaspoon of molasses to give a source of food to the spores, and stir thoroughly. 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

Engaging Play: The unique texture and appearance make it a fascinating toy, ensuring hours of engagement. To freeze, lay the uncooked cheese-coated puffball slices onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, not touching each other. Freeze them until solid, then store them in a sealed heavy-duty, zip-top bag in the freezer for up to 3 months. Fry the slices directly from frozen, then add the tomato sauce and mozzarella and bake as directed. One last way to cook with puffballs is to use them as a substitute for tofu. Since they absorb the taste of other stuff you cook them with, this is a good option. Puffballs never grow on logs or trees, only on the ground. So if it’s growing on wood, it’s not a puffball. Giant puffballs can reach a foot or more in diameter, which makes them hard to mistake for any other type of fungi once they reach that size.Serves 4. * * * * * This recipe is nice and saucy so it goes great over a bowl of cooked rice. You can adjust the heat level to how you like it. 2. Sweet and Sour Asian Style Puffball Puffballs are placed within the Basidiomycota group of fungus, meaning the spores are on the inside. Its old name Gastromycete, means ‘stomach fungi’.

I'd never eaten them before (my mom has cooked them, but I was never home at the time). I have now developed an intense love affair with these giant mushrooms. One of the monsters weighed four pounds, one weighed seven and a half pounds, and the biggest one weighed fifteen pounds!The spores have many sharp microscopic spines which can cause severe irritation of the lungs. It can be equally as bad if you get the spores in your eyes.

We use the large Mozaic Puffballs (pictured right) and even larger Giant Puffballs to make our Puffball schnitzels. This simple method is the best way we have found of cooking them.Some Amanitas, including the Death Cap and the Destroying Angel are deadly poisonous with no known cure. Correctly identifying puffball mushrooms before eating them is very important. There are several species of poisonous Amanita mushrooms that can look similar to puffballs during their early growth stages. 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 The texture of a puffball is like a very dense damp sponge when you cut into it. Peel off the outer rind (either pull it off or cut it off with a knife), and cut the puffball into slices. The rind can cause gastrointestinal upset in some people. If the inside is any colour other than pure white, don't use it. Yellow, brown, or purple means the spores are starting to form and it is no longer good to eat.