Portobello Mushrooms: Take Two



Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Crunchy Winter Salad

We're trying to eat seriously healthy.....seriously....it's a challenge at our house. I love to cook and my husband loves to eat. Well, that's not exactly fair, since I love to cook and eat. As part of our quest to eat healthier, last  night I made Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Crunchy Winter Salad, and it was delicious as well as being seriously healthy!   ( Here's my other portobello recipe ) And, here's the best part,  everything I made took me about 30 minutes AND it was pretty economical. Make your salad and set it aside, then start with the stuffing and cooking up the mushrooms. They were really, really good, even my meat loving husband thought so. He admitted to being full, in spite of no potatoes, no real dressing on the salad and LOTS of veggies. Score!

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

2 portobello mushrooms

olive oil and balsamic vinegar

1 tsp butter

1 medium onion, sliced

2 - 3 cloves of minced garlic

2 handfuls fresh spinach

1 link turkey Italian sausage**

1 slice Alpine Lace reduced fat Swiss Cheese

1 roasted red pepper, cut in half (from a jar is fine)

2 burger buns, your favorite, I recommend whole grain or "white/wheat"

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

First prepare your stuffing: In a small non-stick frying pan, melt the butter with a few drops of olive oil. Add the sliced onion and cook until lightly browned but still slightly firm. Remove the onion to a bowl. Slit the casing of the sausage with a sharp knife and push out the meat into the same frying pan (discard the casing). Cook over medium, stirring and breaking up the meat, until the sausage is crumbled and brown. Add the garlic, and the onions to the pan along with the spinach. Sprinkle with a little Kosher salt and fresh pepper, stirring to incorporate the spinach. Cook for 1 minute. Cover and set aside. The heat will continue to wilt the spinach.

Wipe the mushrooms clean with a damp paper towel. Using a spoon, remove the stems and most of the gills from them. A spoon works well for removing the gills. 

Preheat a grill pan over medium high heat. Brush the mushroom caps with a little olive oil. Put them on the grill and cover them loosely. Cook 5 minutes on each side, watching them so they don't burn. Use a sturdy spatula for this, so the mushrooms remain whole. You can press them down slightly so that they maintain good contact with the pan, but don't break them if you help it.

Place the mushrooms on a cookie sheet or baking pan and fill them with the sausage/onion/spinach mixture. Place 1/2 of roasted red pepper on top of each one. Put them into the oven for 5 - 7 minutes. Add 1/2 slice of the cheese to each mushroom during the last minute of cooking. While the stuffing heats through,, grill the buns in the same pan you used to cook the mushrooms, over medium to high heat. You kind of want to toast them a bit. Press them down gently with the back of the spatula so that they crisp up and get sturdy -- the mushrooms are heavy and juicy!  Top the toasted roll with your stuffed mushroom. Drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar. Serve with Crunchy Winter Salad, recipe below! Enjoy!!

**Cooks Note: To make this meal totally vegetarian and even healthier, eliminate the turkey sausage from the stuffing and crumble in some tofu or the veggie sausage crumbles that you find in the freezer section of the grocery store. OR add more spinach or some sauted, finely chopped zucchini.  I bet it would still be yummy. DON'T eliminate the balsamic vinegar, though, it really makes a difference!

Crunchy Winter Salad

1 small Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped

2 ribs celery, washed, halved and chopped

1 small carrot or 2 baby carrots, grated

1 ring canned pineapple, cut into small pieces (get the kind packed in it's own juice, not syrup)

1 - 2 thin slices red or purple onion, cut into small pieces

zest from 1/2 a lemon

1 oz. coarsely chopped walnuts

1 T. pineapple juice (from the can is fine)

1 tsp. lemon juice

Mix all the above together in a bowl. Serve it over:

2 handfuls washed and chopped romaine lettuce

2 handfuls washed and stemmed spinach, torn up a little

This salad is crunchy and really, really good! Any kind of nuts would probably work, but I was thinking along the lines of a Waldorf salad, sorta' deconstructed!

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Here's a light, springtime dish that can easily serve as a vegetarian main dish, a side dish or an appetizer: Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms. I made this up as I went along, using what I had in my pantry and refrigerator, and the results were so good, I've concluded it must be hard to mess this dish up! Man oh man, were they delish! We ate this alonside a piece of tilapia, that I "oven poached". The hearty mushrooms balanced nicely with the delicate fish, and we hardly knew we were eating healthy -- something I have to sometimes hide from my family! My son does not care for mushrooms, so I set aside some stuffing for him to eat as a side dish. The extra used as a side dish was really good too, so don't hesitate to try this even if you don't like mushrooms! If you have not tried Portobellos, because of the cost, which I admit can be daunting, check your local big box store or Trader Joe's, where they are a little more affordable. If you don't want to spring for Portobellos, there is no reason this could not be stuffed into white mushroom caps. That way, they would be a perfect appetizer bite!

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

2 Portobello mushrooms

1 medium onion (about 2/3 c.)

2 minced garlic cloves

2 T. olive oil, divided use

2-3 big handfulls baby spinach, stemmed, washed and dried

2 pieces whole grain bread, stale is better, toasted

6 stems fresh thyme

1/4 c. dry white wine

salt and pepper

a few drops of balsamic vinegar

a few shavings of parmesan reggiano, optional

Over medium heat, in a large, shallow skillet, add one T. olive oil, the onion and garlic. Saute for several minutes, until the onion begins to get translucent. Remove the mushroom stems, wipe them down, chop them (small pieces, discarding any part that seems too "woody") and add to the skillet. Rough chop the spinach and add to the onion mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Strip the leaves from the thyme stems and add this also. Continue to saute over low heat, while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare your mushroom caps.

To prepare the mushrooms, dampen a clean dish towel or a heavy duty paper towel. Wipe the exterior of the mushrooms clean of all debris, and peal off any of the looser "skin"from the outside of the caps -- it will kind of come off in strips. Don't worry if it all does not come off, just make sure they are wiped cleanly. With a teaspoon, make a shallow indentation in the center where the stem was -- you can add this little bit to the skillet also.

Add a tablespoon of white wine to the skillet and stir this in.Crumble up your toast, into small pieces and add to the mixture, incorporating it well. Taste and correct the seasoning -- you may need a little more salt at this point. Stuff the mixture into the mushrooms, mounding it up slightly. This amount will make more than enough for 2 mushrooms, with a little left over for another mushroom (or 2) or a side dish for a non-mushroom eating teenager.

Place the mushrooms into a casserole and pour the rest of the wine around the sides. Put them into the oven for approximately 30 minutes, until the mushrooms soften. When you remove them, sprinkle a drop or 2 of balsamic vinegar over each. Top with a shave or 2 of parmesan reggiano, if desired.

I bet you are going to love this dish! Let me know what you think!

Spinach Stuffed Chicken

The other night, we had on the Foodnetwork while I was cooking dinner, and Rachael Ray was stuffing chicken breasts, making fettuccine and chopping up a salad. It looked so good, my husband said, "Let's make that!", so last night, I did.

Let me say right up front, that to put this entire meal together in 30 minutes or less would be pretty impressive. There was no instruction given about prepping the chicken breasts, and as soon as I pulled mine out of the package, I knew the "stuffing" and rolling part was going to be pretty near impossible, considering the thickness of the breasts. So, out came the plastic wrap and the rolling pin, and I pounded away on all 6 of them for at least 10 minutes. Then, there was the board and rolling pin clean up, very important whenever you are dealing with raw chicken. When I make this recipe again, and I will, I would buy the thin, breast cutlets that you see in the case at the grocery store. It would make it lots easier, and a more realistic portion size. The whole breast, pounded out and stuffed with all the goodies, was a large portion to consume in one meal. I amended the original just slightly, but the idea and method came straight from Rachael.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Prosciutto

6 chicken breasts, pounded, or thin chicken cutlets

1/2 c. low fat ricotta cheese

1 pkg. chopped, frozen spinach, thawed and drained

2 T. pine nuts, toasted

1 garlic clove, grated

1/4 c. freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

few gratings fresh nutmeg

few gratings of black pepper

6 slices procuitto di Parma (Italian Ham)

To toast your pine nuts, put them in a frying pan over medium heat until they are lightly browned. Watch them so they don't burn. Make your stuffing: Begin by squeezing all of the water out of your frozen chopped spinach. Place it in a bowl with the ricotta, parnigiano, toasted pine nuts and garlic. Mix it well, and grind a little nutmeg and black pepper into the mixture. Mixture will be kind of "stiff" and a little dry.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Lay your chicken breast on a clean work surface, and add a well rounded tablespoon or so of the stuffing mixture towards one end of the breast. Roll the breast up, jelly roll style and secure it with a toothpick. Wrap a slice of the ham around the rolled up chicken, so that the ham covers the opening where the ends come together. Put the 6 breasts in a 13X9" pan, coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes. They get done a little quicker than you would think! These were worth a little work and really tasty. I added the garlic to the recipe, but my family loves that taste. The nutmeg adds a lot too.

Enjoy!