Baked Portabella Mushrooms with Homemade Breadcrumb, Three Cheese, and Spinach Stuffing

So its been almost a year. Afghanistan happened, and then I caught the exausted. I spent the last few months wondering how to explain what happened, and seeing no way, I froze. Deer in the headlights, toaster waffles instead of cooking, three nights a week of matzo-ball soup and my new local coffee shop FROZE.

So, after compiling months and months of half-written not so brilliant posts, I quit.

I disappeared. I am a bad blogger. It will take me some time to find my creativity, both for writing, cooking, and eating again, I know. And I am full of stories I want to share. Time will work them out.

For now, for the first time in months, I created. I made something that did not exist before, I created it in my little head. Its baking now, I have no idea whether it will be delicious or a total return-to-cooking fail. And I don't care. I cooked! I created! I made! Some little part of me is back, and I am rejoicing in it.

The oven is beeping at me, so I will make this quick:

Ingredients:
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Spinach (3/4 of a big bunch)
Garlic (as much as you can stand)
Cardamom (1 tsp)
4 Portabella Mushroom Caps (save stems and scooped out insides for making Veggie broth some other time- they freeze fine!
Ricotta (1.5 cups)
Two other cheeses to taste (I used goat and Parmesan)
Butter
Egg
Homemade breadcrumbs (I make mine from a mix of white and wheat bread and cornflakes, which gives things a great complex, slightly sweet flavor)
Truffle Salt (not strictly necessary of course, but a fun addition)
Balsamic Vinegar

Coat mushrooms in olive oil, then salt and pepper to taste. Melt butter and cook garlic in a pan over medium heat until fragrant. Add spinach, torn up well, and cook until spinach is soft an shrunken. Mix spinach into cheeses, add a beaten egg, and stir well. Add about a cup of homemade breadcrumbs and mix well. Divide between the mushroom caps, heaping on top. Cook for 30 minutes at 350 degrees covered with foil in a medium baking pan. Turn heat up to 45 and cook for another 30 minutes. Then remove the foil and cook another 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and golden on top.

Serve with a sprinkling of the truffle salt and some reduced balsamic....

Will let you know how it is!

Glad to be back.

Creamy Sauteed Mushrooms in Yogurt Sauce

So I came home from work with a hankerin (yes, hankerin, still thinkin about those Texans!) for something garlicky. In my quest to use all the veggies I got from my last shipment before I leave Friday for a trip, I noticed there were still a few packages of mushrooms in the back of the fridge. A few days past perfect, these were not meant for eating raw in salad or the like. Sooooo.....I harkened back to one of my favorite harrrrrible-for-you foods, and decided to go for some sauteed mushrooms.

Doesn't sound that bad for you you say? Well a little context- when I say 'sauteed mushrooms', I mean these butter and garlic covered fist-sized wonders we used to get at the renaissance fair (yes, I was/am a dork, nothing revelatory there) when I was a kid. My aunt would take my cousin and I, and we would get a cone full of these things that probably took 10 yrs off my life. There was no better warm up on earth for a whole day of whining about wanting to do things and looking for just the right opportunity to shove ones' little cousin in elephant poop (sorry Stephen, I can't believe you still talk to me!). From that moment on, I had a love affair with mushrooms.

Believe it or not, I was the pickiest eater in the world when I was a kid. The one somewhat commonly disliked type of thing I would dig into with abandon was mushrooms, the earthier and more fungus-like the better. My best friend from high school shared this love, and often, as we started inching out into culinary worlds beyond Olive Garden (probably more for love of the idea of being rich/fancy/sophisticated enough one day to regularly enjoy them vice any actual love of food), mushrooms were often the motivating factor for selecting a dish on a confusing and unfamiliar menu. Although I exercise a little more caution now (filled with breadcrumbs and cheese is reserved for sports bars and my living room), I still can't get enough of the little guys.

So here I am, freed from my food aversions and fear of trying things by a few years in a country where food was weird, I had no money, and my ability to grasp the subtle linguistic nuances between 'feet' and 'cabbage' was limited to say the least, nevertheless hankerin for some comfort food of my childhood.

Ingredients:
2 cartons of mushrooms (white button are best)
1/2 stick butter
a TON of garlic- as much as you can stand to peel and squish really- I used about 1/4 cup of fresh stuff here
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 cup yogurt or sour cream. I like good thick greek yogurt, but any thick sour milk product will do
1/4 cup fresh parsley (roughly chopped)
2 tbsp fresh dill (roughly chopped)

Melt the butter in a large saute pan. Add the garlic (shallots are a good addition here too if you are in the mood) and saute for 2 minutes. Slice the mushrooms and add all at once. Put about half of the parsley in at this point. Add the salt and pepper, and saute until mushrooms are soft, but not totally cooked down (about 3 minutes on high).


Once mushrooms have cooked down, poor a little of the liquid from the pan into a bowl. Whisk in the yogurt (this will keep it from curdling when you add it). Then poor the yogurt mix back into the saute pan, add the rest of the parsley and dill, and simmer until hot all the way through.

Remove from heat, and serve! Delicious!