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.

Porcini-Wild Rice Soup

I have been wanting to make this soup since I bought Veganomicon. Of course with the boy's aversion to mushrooms, it's not exactly something I could slip into the weekly rotation. I was going to make it when I was visiting my parents once (my mushroom sanctuary) but dried porcinis and wild rice blends were both absurdly expensive. I got my chance though when I made plans with my friend to come over for dinner one night, and it was absolutely delicious!! I ended up using a dried wild mushroom mix in lieu of the dry porcinis because that's what I had, and I never grated the carrot in in the end as per recipe instructions (we were so excited to eat it we forgot), and I used a leek instead of an onion because of my onion thing.... and I added about 2 cups extra broth because the rice kept sucking it up. But hey, other than that, totally followed the recipe ;) I think next time I go to visit my parents I WILL make this, but I'll "import" the mushrooms and rice from home.

Wild Mushroom-Wild Rice Soup

1/2 ounce dried wild mushrooms
2 cups boiling water
1 leek, tough green part removed, well de-gritted, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tsp salt
pepper, to taste
8 oz crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 cups wild rice blend
6 cups vegetable stock

1. Pour the boiling water over the dried mushrooms in a bowl, cover, and let sit until you finish doing all this other stuff...

2. In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the leeks, and saute for a few minutes until they start getting soft. Add the garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes or until lightly brown.

3. Add the mushrooms and saute for a few minutes until they start to shrink down.

4. Carefully remove the dried mushrooms from the liquid (hot, remember?) and slice them. Add them, and the liquid, to the pot.

5. Add the rice and the broth and bring to a boil. Once it's boiling, lower the heat to a simmer and cook for about 45 minutes or until the rice is tender.