Showing posts with label mushrooms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mushrooms. Show all posts

Perfect Pizza Portobellos

2:07 PM | Labels: , , , , , ,



I think I might be on a sugar high from all of these desserts I’ve been telling you about lately! 13 dozen cookies, the most outrageous layer cake I’ve ever made, Nutella FroYo – is it just me, or can you feel your pancreas begging you to give it and its poor insulin-generating cells a bit of a break? What do you mean, your pancreas doesn’t talk to you? Oh, nevermind…

To hush my internal organs and prevent them from staging an uprising, and to hopefully do the same for any of you with equally unruly body parts, I have something that is not at all a dessert. In fact, it can even be low-carb if you want it to be (as in, if you don’t decide that serving it with a side of warm, crusty Italian bread isn’t an absolutely fantastic idea), so we’re really pulling a 180 here.  You’re welcome.

I’m kidding.

No but really, these pizza portobellos are fabulous and the perfect remedy for a prolonged period of culinary indulgences. As it stands, it’s not vegetarian, but don’t let that dampen your spirits too much, all of my veggie-vore readers. Take out the turkey entirely or swap it with a crumbled veggie burger instead – I’ll bet most people will hardly know the difference. I used a turkey burger because that’s what I had. In fact, I described this dish in my notes as meaty, and I wasn’t even talking about the burger – I was talking about the mushroom. This dish is also kind of warm and comforting, so maybe wait until this heat wave rolls on by (come to think of it, a clean, crisp salad would have made a more seasonally appropriate blog detox than this, but alas, I’m doing the best with the busy hand I’ve been dealt) before hunkering down in your kitchen to make this. The good news is that if you’re not cooking for a crowd, you could totally make this on the stovetop and bake it in the toaster oven, no full oven heat required….which means no excuses. Unless you don’t own a toaster oven. In which case I need to ask why…no, no, that soapbox should be saved for another day.

 
One Year Ago: Crustless Spinach-Tomato Quiche
Two Years Ago: Pizza Muffins

Pizza Portobellos
This dish is versatile – treat it like your favorite personal-sized pizza and add in whatever toppings you like. Make it vegetarian. Stuff it with meat. Either way, dig in and enjoy!

Yield: 2 servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
¼ onion, chopped
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 precooked (turkey)burger, crumbled
1 cup whole peeled tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 large Portobello mushrooms
2 cups spinach
3-4 tablespoons parmesan cheese

The Method
Prepare the sauce by adding the onion and 1 teaspoon of olive oil to a small sauce-pan and sautéing for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the minced garlic and cook an additional 1-2 minutes. Stir in the crumbled burger, 2 minutes, followed by the tomatoes, basil and oregano. Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce to a simmer until it has reduced by about one-half to three-quarters. Break up the whole tomatoes as it cooks.

Meanwhile, remove the stems from and clean the Portobello mushrooms. Dry them well and brush with ½ teaspoon olive oil each. Broil for 5 minutes. While the portobellos are broiling, sauté the spinach in a lightly greased pan until it has started to wilt.

Assemble the pizzas by dividing the spinach evenly between the two portobellos, which should be flipped so their undersides are now facing up in order to stuff them properly. Top each with ½ cup of the sauce – you don’t want this to be a particularly liquidy dish – followed by 1 ½ - 2 tablespoons of the cheese each. Bake at 350° Fahrenheit, until the cheese has melted.

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Posted by toni

Polenta con Marinara di Funghi - a way to feel fancy while you really indulge in a simple polenta with mushroom marinara

5:46 AM | Labels: , , ,


To anyone who thought their final semester at college was a joke, I have to say, I’m jealous. I always thought of senior year, particularly the spring semester, as more of a formality – I’d only have classes a few days a week rather than the full five, I wouldn’t start class early in the morning and wouldn’t stay late in the day, and the classes wouldn’t be all that demanding. What a dream that would be! Nutrition does not afford such luxuries. I’m sure many other majors are the same. The classes I’m taking now are the most rigorous I’ll ever have, and I find myself waking up at 7 in the morning on weekends and not finding time to breathe until nearly 9 at night. I’ve had to stage several self-interventions as the stress escalated within me, and by the end of the day I collapse into bed and am shocked when I hear my alarm going off just minutes later – or so it seems.

It goes without saying that I have been craving comfort food, and one of the most satisfying dishes I’ve found to alleviate stress and exhaustion is polenta. It’s smooth and creamy, warm and filling. It’s like a pillow for my taste buds to relax on. In fact, this mushroom and polenta mélange was exactly what I needed, with flavors that work well together and a warmth to it that transcends just physical temperature and actually soothes you. The recipe also yields an alarming amount of food, yet it amounts to just about 450 calories if you eat the full serving, so you can feel like you’re stuffing yourself into a stupor (thus satiating that all-too-pesky compulsion to eat when stress gets the better of you) without actually doing too much caloric damage. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Lastly, I want to say that I hope the name I devised for this dish doesn’t offend anyone. I know very little about Italy or true Italian culture: I barely speak a lick of the language and I’ve certainly never visited the country. However, I am currently reading Under the Tuscan Sun, and although this by no means makes me even remotely knowledgeable of Italian culture, it has sparked in me a little bit of inspiration. This polenta dish may be worlds away from authentic. The name I created for it may be butchering the language. I certainly hope not. But something as fluid as “Polenta con Marinara di Funghi” seems to embody this dish so much more appropriately than the all too boring “Polenta in a Tomato-Mushroom Sauce” that it really is. Again, I mean no harm, and freely admit my ignorance. It just sounds pretty, you know?


One Year Ago: Buttermilk Pancakes topped with a Yogurt-Fruit Puree

Polenta con Marinara di Funghi (Polenta in a Tomato-Mushroom Sauce)
Yield: 2 servings
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
¼ cup chopped onion
1 ½ cups chopped baby bella mushrooms
1 ½ cups (no salt added) diced tomatoes
½ cup (no salt added) tomato sauce
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1-2 teaspoons dried thyme
3 cups water
2 teaspoons (no salt added) chicken bouillon1
½ cup instant polenta
1-2 tablespoons pesto
½ - 1 cup spinach, chopped or torn
2 tablespoons chopped, fresh basil

The Method
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and sauté 5 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms and continue sautéing for an additional 3-5 minutes. Finally, add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano, and thyme to the skillet. Bring the mixture to a simmer and continue to simmer over low heat.

Meanwhile, in a separate pot, boil the water with the bouillon added. Pour the polenta into the boiling water and remove from the heat, stirring constantly until it thickens and bubbles. Pour it onto a lipped platter or bowl, allowing it to spread out in a rustic, imperfect way if possible.

Remove the mushroom sauce from the heat and stir in the pesto and spinach. Pour the sauce over the polenta and sprinkle with the chopped basil.

Notes:
1For a fully vegetarian meal, feel free to use vegetable bouillon (do they make that?) or replace the water-bouillon combination with vegetable stock. I only use chicken bouillon because that’s what I keep in my pantry.









 


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Posted by toni

Tomato & Mushroom Thyme Stew

9:52 AM | Labels: , , , ,


You wouldn’t know from looking outside that it’s a full week into January. The sun is beating down on us and the temperature is already into the 50’s at 11:30am. It should be frigid and windy; my face should be frostbitten and my eyes should be tearing from the bitter cold air. There should even be the chance of snow. January is stew time, but not today. And as much as I love more temperate weather like today, it’s disconcerting to find it at this time of year. So I’m going to talk about stew, anyway.

A little while back I made this mushroom and tomato stew, and really loved it. It cooked down enormously, as mushroom-based dishes tend to do, so you really need something else with it – sop it up with bread, mix it with pasta, or do what I did and serve it atop pumpkin pancakes. I can feel your eyes boring holes into me now. Pumpkin Pancakes? As the base for a stew? You’re probably wondering where I come up with this stuff. Honestly, I don’t know, but it works – so much so, in fact, that even if you don’t make this with pumpkin pancakes, the recipe would probably taste fantastic with the addition of some roasted pumpkin slices or a swirl of pumpkin puree.I also through in a hefty handful of spinach - maybe 1/2-1C per person - and really liked that addition, too.

One thing you need to know about this recipe is that it makes your kitchen smell like warm, wintry heaven. It will be hard to leave it alone for the time that it takes to cook down, but your patience will be rewarded. I absolutely loved this stew, and even though I don’t think I quite nailed it – it definitely needed more mushrooms, in my opinion (though I accidentally used a smaller measuring cup than I was supposed to), and maybe some beans, too – it was more than satisfying enough to convince me to tell you about it now.

As for the pumpkin pancakes, you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer.

 
One Year Ago: How to Make a Not-Deep-Fried Tortilla Bowl

Mushroom and Tomato Thyme Stew, courtesy of Beyond the Peel
Yield: 4 servings
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
1 large onion
6-8 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 cups roughly chopped mushrooms
2 large tomatoes, roughly 3 cups chopped
½ cup tomato paste
4 cups stock
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
grated parmesan and fresh thyme, for garnish

The Method
Slice the onion into wedges and set aside. Coarsely chop the garlic cloves, and combine with the onion and oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook until the onions are translucent, approximately 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms to the pot, and continue to cook. Meanwhile, dice the tomatoes and add them along with the remaining ingredients (save for the parmesan and fresh thyme), and simmer until the sauce has thickened and become stew-like in consistency, approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.1 Top with the parmesan and thyme, if desired. Serve alongside bread, pasta, rice, pancakes, or just on its own (but where’s the fun in that?).

Notes:
1Because I quartered the recipe, I only needed 45 minutes for it to simmer to the right consistency. If you’re playing around with the yield, just make sure you keep an eye on it around this part because time will vary according to the quantity of food in the pot.





 


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Posted by toni

Lemon-Basil Marinara & Polenta Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

1:21 PM | Labels: , ,



Continuing with Floptimism's celebration of National Mushroom Month, today's post will be all about one of the most delicious stuffed mushrooms I have ever eaten. It's full of lemon flavor and meaty textures, plus it's warm, comforting, and really vibrant. This is the kind of meal that's elegant enough for guests, easy enough for hosts, and enjoyable enough for everyone. It's filling, despite being low in calories, and delivers a whopping 10 grams of fiber per serving. I'd call that a win from any way you look at it!

One Year Ago: Black Bean & Quinoa Stir Fry

Lemon-Basil Marinara & Polenta-Stuffed Portobellos1
Yield: 6 servings
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups chopped mushrooms
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
 28 ounces crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup basil, sliced chiffonade
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 cups polenta cornmeal
2-3 cups spinach
6 portobello mushroom caps

The Method
Pour the olive oil into a large saucepan over medium heat and add the onion to saute until tender and translucent, approximately 5-7 minutes. Add in the garlic and chopped mushrooms, continuing to cook until lightly golden brown, or an additional 2 minutes. Pour the tomatoes into the pan and allow the mixture to come to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally and checking frequently, 45-60 minutes.2 Once the sauce has reduced a little and thickened slightly, stir in the basil and lemon zest and transfer to a bowl.3

Coat the pan with water, enough to cook the polenta, add the polenta, and stir constantly over medium heat until the polenta has thickened a little but is still slightly liquidy. Add the marinara back into the pan and mix with the polenta and lower the heat to medium-low.

Meanwhile, broil the mushroom caps 3-6 minutes per side, then serve by scooping 1/6 of the polenta marinara into each upturned cap.

Notes:
1The recipe for the lemon-basil marinara is only slightly adapted from the blog, In Good Taste
2My sauce was more than ready after just 10 minutes, so be careful. I was only cooking for myself, so the amount of sauce was greatly reduced, which is why I've included the originally cooking time as well.
3The sauce can be made in advance and refrigerated in an airtight container for 3 days, or frozen for 1 month.





 




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Posted by toni

Sophisticated Stuffed Mushroom Caps

5:51 PM | Labels: , ,


I just sat down and typed out an entire post about this "Ginger Power Smoothie" that I made a while ago full of unconventional things like sweet potato and pumpkin puree, and I got all the way to formatting the entry and adding the photo...and I just couldn't do it. I loved the taste of this smoothie, but the pictures look so phenomenally unappealing that I can't reveal the "recipe" to you just yet. I have to try to redeem this promising set of flavors and nutrients with a cleaner, more tested recipe. I don't mean to leave you hanging like that - maybe this summer I will be able to perfect it (though in a slightly altered form, since pumpkin puree may be hard to come by), but I have to scratch it and choose a different dish to share with you this evening.


That dish happened to be a very appealing combination of warmed chickpeas and spinach, which I also proceeded to write about, until I realized that a much wiser and more level-headed me wrote in my notes way back when I made the dish that because I really didn't get to taste it myself (it was made for a potluck and was all gone before I got to the buffet), I would need to make it a second time before posting. I just felt too guilty to proceed with the post, even though the very fact that it disappeared so quickly gives me a pretty good inkling as to how enjoyable it was.

Moving on to Attempt #3, we have these beautiful, tantalizing, slightly burnt (but still loved!) mushroom caps, filled with turkey marinated lightly in yogurt and sour cream, topped with ground pine nuts and broiled to a toasty wonder. The original recipe called for a few more sophisticated ingredients like white wine and chicken (ground turkey is decidedly not amongst the culinary elite of the poultry world), but I still think it turned out well despite my use-what's-on-hand attitude.

The pine nut offers a buttery, nutty flavor to encapsulate the creaminess of the chicken mixture, and the mushroom cushion beneath it provides a solid meatiness to make the whole thing feel a bit more like a meal. It's certainly not a spicy meal but the red pepper does add a mild level of heat, and the yogurt's tang imparts a subtle sweetness. It's a little monochromatic, though the spinach that I served it over did help, and so in future attempts I may add some more veggies.

One Year Ago: Cake Decorating: Tackling the Frosting

Stuffed Mushroom Caps, adapted from Closet Cooking
Yield: 2 servings

The Ingredients
1 + 1/2 tablespoon butter, divided
2 ounces non-fat vanilla greek yogurt
2 ounces non-fat sour cream
1/3 cup chicken broth*
1/2 teaspoon crushed red peppers
2 large portabella mushrooms
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound lean ground turkey breast1/4 cup pine nuts

The Method
In a small saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and mix in the cream cheese, broth, and red pepper flakes. Cook the mixture until it thickens, then set aside.

Meanwhile, remove the stems from the mushrooms and chop them; set aside. In a medium pan over medium heat, gently toast the pine nuts for 3-4 minutes, until lightly brown and fragrant. Set aside to cool momentarily, and melt the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of butter in the same medium pan. Add the onion and saute until tender, about 5 minutes, before adding in the garlic for another minute or so, until fragrant. While the onion is cooking, grind the pine nuts in a food processor and set aside once more. Add the chopped mushroom stems and ground turkey to the pan with the onions, cooking until the turkey is broken up and, for the most part, cooked through.

Pour the cream sauce over the turkey mixture and stir to combine, then spoon half the mixture into each mushroom cap. Broil the mushroom caps for 5-10 minutes, keeping a close eye on the pine nut topping.** Remove from the oven when golden brown.

Notes:
*The original recipe calls for white wine, so feel free to sub this in if you have it.
**The recipe calls for 8-14 minutes under the broiler, but it also suggests using breadcrumbs, which may be less temperamental when exposed to heat. My mushroom caps were browning pretty severely by 5 minutes (hence the little burnt patch in the picture), so either broil without the pine nuts on for 5-8 minutes and then add the topping for another 3-5, or just keep an eye on it.

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Posted by toni

Scrambled Egg Whites with Edamame, Green Beans & Mushrooms, plus a little housekeeping for fun

7:45 AM | Labels: , , , , , , , ,


I know that my last post hinted of heaps of dessert recipes and maybe even some non-chicken dinner entries, but I decided I would do something a little out of the ordinary for me and share with you my breakfast. Breakfast and lunch can be some of the most creative times for me, because I'm cooking just for me in small "batches." It's my time to experiment with combinations of impulses. There are no recipes here, and it's a freedom that dinner and desserts don't give me. I suspect that when I become more acclimated to cooking and baking, dinner in the Floptimism kitchen will look a lot more like the current breakfast and lunch affair, but that's looking pretty far down the road, I'd say.

So, here it is, my breakfast this morning:
Scrambled Egg Whites with Edamame, Green Beans, and Mushrooms
Yield: 1 serving
The Ingredients
1/3 C egg whites (or 2 large eggs)
3-4 Tbsp (or as much as you see fit) combination of cooked and cooled edamame, green beans, and mushrooms*
A pinch each of ground mustard and cumin
A hefty pinch of garlic powder
Ground Black Pepper, to taste

The Method
1. Place the vegetables in a skillet and cook over medium heat.
2. While the vegetables are reheating, combine the eggs and spices (minus the pepper) in a small dish (I always just use the measuring cup used in doling out the egg white from my trusty carton of egg whites).
3. When you start to hear the veggies sizzling a little bit, and the skillet seems hot enough for scrambling, add the olive oil and spread it around.
4. Pour the eggs in, and allow to sit for several seconds to begin to set (this is unnecessary if using whole eggs).
5. As the eggs set, move them all around (real technical terms we have here, I know) until they're all cooked up.
6. Serve, add a little ground pepper, and enjoy!

*Note: Last night, my mom microwaved one of those frozen packs of edamame, green beans and mushrooms for dinner. We had leftovers (does this happen to anyone else, or just in my vegetable-averse family?), so I heated some up this morning. I would imagine that any combination of them, even fresh ones, would work.

Now, all of that being said, I found these to be a little bland. I don't know if I need to stubbornly add a little bit of salt like most normal people who eat scrambled eggs, or if I need something like paprika or some onion in there to kick the flavor up. I used these spices in some random ratio a while back with whole eggs, and it was delicious, so maybe removing the yolks means that the spices need to be cranked up a notch. I also considered adding a little bit of pesto to the eggs just before scrambling, but was afraid that I would wind up with a pile of green mush, since most of the veggies were green, too; feel free to test that out, though, as it might give an appropriate flavor and even saltiness to the end product. I will continue experimenting with it, but wanted to show you guys something a little less structured coming out of my kitchen, especially during a meal that I tend to not share with you for some reason.

There's something else I'd like to mention, though - and mind you, I'm feeling and intending no "woe is me" portion of the post, by a long shot. If I never receive a "follower" (I don't really like that term - it makes me feel a little cult-ish) or a comment, I'll keep posting. I know that occasionally someone glances over my posts, and hopefully takes away a new recipe to try out even if they never acknowledge it. However, I'm starting to feel as though I've been around these parts long enough to have acquired a small group of readers, and that's just not the case.

I'm wondering if any more successful bloggers out there have any tips for me, I guess. I know that I get wordy, and have wondered if maybe that detracted from it. I also know that my photos leave a lot to be desired from, and I, myself, often choose to save or overlook a recipe based on how the picture turned out; I can't blame any superficiality on that front. I also know that my recipes aren't always so stellar - a lot of times they aren't finished products, and even more often they're pretty standard. See, I can think up some potential issues with this blog's failure to catch on, but I can't say with confidence if any of those reasons are the real ones.

If you are out there and reading, I would love to hear from you. There's so much potential on these blogs to share experiences and help one another, and I really would like to become a part of that.

That's all for today, I think. I still have those dessert and dinner plans, so I'll be back again soon...hopefully with a success story. If I don't manage to get on here before Sunday, I hope everyone has an enjoyable July 4th!

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