We’ve had a lot of rain, and mushrooms popped up in my yard. Turns out they are Agaricus campestris, a delicious choice edible.
If I ate mushrooms, I’d be enjoying a delicious mushroom omelet right now.
Note- please don’t eat random mushrooms.
where’s your sense of adventure?
Well, all mushrooms are edible. It’s just that with some, you can only eat them once.
But these have a solid ID- shape and size, gill color, sporeprint color, etc. Two guidebooks were consulted.
I would eat these as readily as I would eat blackberries I found growing wild. But I wouldn’t give them to anybody else until I ate them.
If this is your last post, we’ll know why.
This summer has been very wet in western PA. We’ve had a bumper crop of chanterelles, chicken mushrooms (aka sulfur shelves), and various oysters.
Those will go great with the muffins!
I picked about five pounds of mushrooms out of the yard last week before mowing. No way in hell was I going to try to eat them though.
Shoeless, you made the right choice. But it’s interesting to ID mushrooms, same way birdwatching is interesting (to some people).
So if/when they pop up again, you might want to investigate. Most mushrooms yard mushrooms shouldn’t be eaten, but some are delicious.
But if it’s a big white warty one about the size of a paper plate, don’t bother.
Chlorophylum molydites, very common and dramatic mushroom. Easily spotted and identified- the spore print is a greyish green color.
Based on a “mushrooms of Kansas” website I found, I’m pretty sure that they were indeed chlorophylum molydites. They start off looking like a golf ball on a tee, then the tops flatten out and grow to about 4-5" across.
Judging from that website, it looks like there are definitely some edible ones in the area, but like I said, I’m not taking any chances!
Good job on the ID!
Mushroom identification isn’t any harder than say, bird identification or learning the names of the stars.
But being sure enough of your ID to eat a mushroom is a higher level of confidence.
I wouldn’t do it for all mushrooms, but in this case I’m certain.
Note that there are ‘unmistakable’ mushrooms. Morels, for example, or Shaggy Manes.
I don’t know if any of those live in your area, but they are as obvious as it gets.
Of course, now that you can ID Chlorophylum molybdites, you are halfway to IDing Meadow Mushrooms, as that’s the most common species they could be confused with.
Now learn to differentiate them from Amanitas and you’re set. 
(Sporeprint, volva, double annulus is how you tell)
Concur - it’s a skill and knowledge set, not magic - I use the same approach as you - know and eat a smallish number of good edibles very well (including knowing how to set them apart from any mimics), then merely look at the others in wonder.
Chanterelles are my favourite unmistakable - the gill-wrinkles divide and reunite - a feature that is never found in any of the other things that look like them.
One that is pretty easy to ID is actually one of the Little Brown Mushrooms.
Marasmius oreades has a fibrous stem that can be tied in a knot.
Nothing similar has a stem like that, it’s a really positive ID. Of a delicious mushroom.
I love those too - for some reason, they’ve got a reputation as having an uninteresting flavour - but I find them delicious. They’re really easy to dry too.
Better dried than any other way, is what I’ve heard.
Run a string through the caps and hang them up to dry like banana chips.