Monday, August 23, 2010

Stuffed Mushrooms

Oh man two months off.

So, I'm married now. There is now a Mr. Megatarian. He is, however, an omni, but we'll forgive him that due to his love of vegan food. We had a beautiful vegan wedding, with kilts and bagpipers and monkey cake.

This is what a megatarian getting married looks like

This was us and our very tall piper

And finally, a vegan sock monkey cake. Almond cake with marzipan and dark chocolate between the cake layers, and vanilla buttercream

Then yesterday was my birthday! I made myself a whole complicated birthday dinner, and I wanted to post about the stuffed mushrooms before I forgot what we threw into them. It was all sort of slapdash. I couldn't find a recipe I liked, so I just threw everything together that I thought I wanted in them. It came out great! I highly suggest this method. Even Mr. Megatarian, former mushroom hater, ate two.


Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms
8 Medium sized portabella caps, cleaned with the woody stalk removed
3 cups fresh bread crumbs *
1 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 shallot, diced
1/3 cup walnuts, ground
3 tbsp sesame seeds, ground
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp dried thyme
1.5 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
Olive oil
Garlic powder

1. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Drizzle the mushrooms, cup side up, with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Put on a cookie sheet and set aside.

3. In a large skillet, sautee the shallots, celery and garlic until translucent. Add the spinach, nuts and seeds, nutritional yeast, and thyme and mix until well distributed.

4. Add the bread crumbs and mix well. Add the vegetable broth and stir until a slightly pasty consistency is reached (you may want to add the broth gradually, because the bread crumbs will soak up more or less depending on how dry they are).

5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fold in parsley.

6. Fill the mushrooms with the stuffing.

7. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the mushrooms caps are soft and let off a bunch of liquid.

Here they are featured with batter fried eggplant and heirloom tomato salad.