Some Things Never Change

I'm not going to lie (I will never lie to you in this blog, actually. I'll omit things like crazy, but I'll never lie...) - I got way overly excited at the thought of dinner tonight. Why, you ask? Because I realized that one of my favorite foods didn't require any modification to be gluten free: stuffed mushrooms.

Now, there are a lot of ways to do stuffed mushrooms, and a LOT of them have breadcrumbs. I've always hated putting breadcrumbs in mine because I'd rather have less cohesive stuffing that's all delicious sausage, herbs & cheese, and no filler. So I decided to include the recipe here. And this is the part where you're going to get upset with me. I don't measure. Anything. Ever. To me, cooking is art. I add until it looks, smells, feels, or tastes right. So while I will hazard guesses as to how much I used, you may have to experiment a little. But as far as I'm concerned, that's half the fun of cooking.

Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms a la Stephane

Ingredients:

• Two packs of large stuffing mushrooms (I do these with regular-sized mushrooms, too, but the stuffing ones are a lot easier)
• Two cloves of garlic - chopped
• 2-3 Tbsp parmesan cheese
• Ground sausage (I seriously just buy the turkey breakfast sausage and season/grind it myself - it has WAY less fat, and I think it tastes better. If you do this, the seasoning I use is just oregano, basil, and occasionally thyme)
• 3 Tbsp-ish of red wine (I seriously just pour it - put in as much as you want. I just assume this is about what I used)
• 3-4 Tbsp balsalmic vinegar

Get creative with the liquids. You want to use white wine? Go for it! You think some Worcestershire sauce would be good in these? It probably would. Like I said, cooking is art. And Pollock certainly wasn't worried about making a mess.

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 325
• Pull the stems from the mushrooms - gently, so you don't crack the caps. Throw these in your food processor. (Note: if you don't have a food processor, you'll just have to have fun chopping everything willy-nilly by hand. Before I had a food processor, I did. It just makes slightly chunkier filling)
• Place mushroom caps open-side up (I feel like maybe that last part isn't totally necessary to tell you...) on a baking pan. I always line mine with foil because I HATE scrubbing pans. I was able to fit 16 on my large baking pan, with plenty of space in between.

• Add sausage, seasonings, cheese, garlic, wine (reserve 1 Tbsp), and vinegar (reserve 1 Tbsp) to the food processor with the mushroom stems, and pulse until a crumbly, soft mixture forms.
• Spray a pan with cooking spray, or heat 2 Tbsp of oil in it. Add the filling, along with the rest of the liquid - a lot can get absorbed while it cooks.
• Saute filling until it's browned, the liquid has mostly cooked off, and your kitchen smells so good you're almost willing to burn your tongue by just eating the filling out of the pan.
• Place filling in the mushroom caps. I use a round measuring spoon (Tbsp for these, tsp for smaller mushrooms), just because it fits the shape of the caps better and does a better job than a regular spoon.

 

• Place pan in the oven and cook for 50 minutes.
• Remove, and let cool slightly before eating.

While these were cooking, I made the quinoa/corn rotelle that I bought yesterday, and heated some marinara on the stove. Stuffed mushrooms pair perfectly with pasta. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I actually like this pasta better than regular pasta. Here's the finished meal:

 

 

Needless to say, now I'm stuffed.

 

 

On another note, the countdown to my apartment being gluten-free has begun. I made a list entitled "Enemy Targets on Friendly Soil - By Sector" for Mike. Every food in the apartment that contains gluten is on the list, divided by where it is in the kitchen. I even put everything with gluten left on the actual left side of each of the cupboards and the fridge. Yes, I'm a huge dork. But everyone who already knows me knows that already. And if you didn't, well, you'd have found out soon anyway.