Tag Archives: mushrooms

Let’s Celebrate Mushrooms…

30 Sep

Today is the last day in September… and I just found out yesterday September is National Mushroom Month. Can’t believe I learned about this just when the month is about to end. I say, let’s celebrate with a recap of my favorite Mushroom Recipes.

I did not grow up liking mushrooms… but now, I LOVE THEM. As you can see from the list below:

I do LOVE to stuff mushrooms…

Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms

Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

SunDried Tomatoes Stuffed Mushrooms

Mushroom-Stuffed Mushrooms

 

Wild Mushroom Lasagna

Arroz Kristina

Oyster Mushrooms Chips

White Truffle Mac and Cheese

Mushroom and Goat Cheese Pastelillo

Provencal Sandwich

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Mushroom and Goat Cheese Spread

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Smoked Gouda and Spinach Risotto

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 Which one if your favorite???

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Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

12 Aug

My sister came for a quickie visit to Puerto Rico… And to make things easier on her and my BIL, we decided to cook up some appetizer-type food and tell everyone if they wanted to see baby Ale, all they needed to do was to stop by my mom’s house.

I didn’t want to cook something and have it re-heated… I though stuffed mushrooms would be perfect because I could stuff them at home and cook them in batches as people would visit and decided they wanted something to nibble on.

The idea worked out perfectly because I did way too many… and we ended up dividing the leftovers between my mom and I for lunch the next day. Great make ahead idea…

 

 

GOAT CHEESE STUFFED MUSHROOMS

1 large package of white stuffing mushrooms
1/2 medium onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, minced or grated on a microplane
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
5 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped in small pieces – make sure they’re made without sulfites as a preservative
1/4 cup of vegetable broth
½ cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese, organic preferably- divided
½ cup crumbled goat cheese
1/2 cup of loosely-packed fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped finely
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
  1. Clean the mushrooms well using a damp paper towel. Remove the stems and chop them into small pieces and set aside. Reserve the caps for later use.
  2. In a small saucepan, heat the vegetable broth to a simmer and add the sundried tomatoes. Turn off the stove and let the tomatoes just sit in the hot broth for a few minutes to help them reconstitute a bit.
  3. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, pour a little olive oil and sauté the onions, garlic and the mushrooms stems you already chopped. Cook until the mushrooms are browned. Season with the thyme, stripping the leaves from the stems, salt and pepper. Allow the mixture to cook some more to evaporate a bit, about 5 more minutes. Remove from pan into a bowl and allow cooling a bit.
  4. In a separate bowl, mix together the cooled mushroom stem/onion mixture with the sun-dried tomatoes, breadcrumbs, goat cheese, ½ the parmesan cheese, and chopped fresh parsley. Drizzle some olive oil if you see the mix a bit dry… but chances are it’s not.
  5. Preheat oven to 425F.
  6. In a large baking dish drizzled with a bit of olive oil, place all the mushrooms stuffed with the mixture we just made. Don’t push the stuffing too much into the mushrooms cavity, but do heap any additional stuffing generously on top of mushrooms. No need to discard or leave any stuffing for future use.
  7. Take the extra parmesan we saved and add a small mound on top of each mushrooms. I usually drizzle a bit of olive oil and sprinkle some additional salt and pepper to season the mushrooms themselves.
  8. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the mushrooms looked cooked and cheese on top is golden brown.

Serve immediately…

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Gluten-free Sun-dried Tomato Stuffed Mushrooms

16 Mar

I’m into mushrooms… they’re delicious and they’re easy and quick to make. And when recently I was invited to make something “different” for the Vegetarian Festival at the Yoga Center, I decided I wanted to make some stuffed mushrooms.

I love to buy white button mushrooms at Costco, but the package is SO BIG that it’s usually too much for just me at home. But if we’re cooking for the Yoga Center, I would certainly need 2 packages. Mushrooms are used in the yoga center, but they’re not a usual main dish occurrence because they’re usually expensive when cooking for lots of people. But I thought this is my chance to highlight how you can embellish a little old mushroom and make them be your main dish.

I used gluten-free crackers instead of regular breadcrumbs because there are a lot of people at the center who keep a gluten-free diet. They work just the same, you’ll see and taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GLUTEN-FREE SUN-DRIED TOMATO STUFFED MUSHROOMS

2 large packages of white stuffing mushrooms – about 40-45 mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped finely
½ green bell pepper, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, minced or grated on a microplane
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
10 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped in small pieces – make sure they’re made without sulfites as a preservative
½ cup of vegetable broth
1/2 packet of gluten-free crackers – I use Energy brand because that’s why I have available
1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese, organic preferably- divided
1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese, organic preferably
1 cup of loosely-packed fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped finely
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil

 

  1. Clean the mushrooms well using a damp paper towel. They sometimes have traces of the dirt they were growing in. Remove the stems and chop them into small pieces and set aside. Reserve the caps for later use.
  2. In a small saucepan, heat the vegetable broth to a simmer and add the sundried tomatoes. After it simmers for a while, turn off the stove and let the tomatoes just sit in the hot broth for a few minutes to help them reconstitute a bit.
  3. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, pour a little olive oil and sauté the onions, peppers, garlic and the mushrooms stems you already chopped. Cook until the mushrooms are browned. Season with the thyme, stripping the leaves from the stems, salt and pepper. Add the reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes all together with the broth that’s left. Allow the mixture to cook some more to evaporate a bit, about 5 more minutes. Remove from pan into a bowl and allow cooling a bit.
  4. While the mixture cools, process the crackers into crumbs in a food processor.
  5. Mix together the cooled mushroom stem/onion/tomatoes mix with the crackers, mozzarella, ½ the parmesan cheese, and chopped fresh parsley. Drizzle some olive oil if you see the mix a bit dry… but chances are it’s not.
  6. Preheat oven to 425F.
  7. In a large baking dish drizzled with a bit of olive oil, place all the mushrooms stuffed with the mixture we just made. Don’t push the stuffing too much into the mushrooms cavity, but do heap any additional stuffing generously on top of mushrooms. No need to discard or leave any stuffing for future use.
  9. Take the extra parmesan we saved and add a small mound on top of each mushrooms. I usually drizzle a a bit of olive oil and sprinkle some additional salt and pepper to season the mushrooms themselves.
  11. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the mushrooms looked cooked and cheese on top is golden brown.

Serve immediately…

But if you want to make this for a party, you can place these on a steam table with about ½ cup of vegetable broth and allow them to steam to keep warm. If you place in a steam table dry, the mushrooms will shrivel.

I know… this Vegetarian Festival was filled with dishes; hardly these mushrooms seem like a main entrée. But I have served these, just like I have served my better-than-Maggiano’s Stuffed Mushrooms as a main dish with a side salad at home.

The positive comments kept on coming the whole night. Gabriel, Angie, Tania and many others came up to me to share their compliments on the mushrooms and asking for the recipe. I told them they needed to wait until we published here… you know, it’s easier to just hit print than write this all down. I actually repeated this recipe again at the center just a week later – people were left wanting some more.

So for all the fans… here’s the recipe now. Now you can make it at home whenever you want, not just when I make it at the Yoga Center. I hope it does not disappoint.

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Wild Mushroom Lasagna

8 Dec

This Thanksgiving I traveled to visit with my sister and her new baby boy… I noticed this is one of the few times in my life I have spent Thanksgiving outside Puerto Rico, besides the 2 Thanksgivings I spent while living in Chicago a few moons ago. Not even when I lived in NYC I spent Thanksgiving there. Nope… I’ve never seen the Macy’s Parade live. Always on TV.

Since I’ve been vegetarian, I’ve always been the one planning the main menu. If someone wants to bring turkey, they’re welcome… but I plan the menus and they’re all vegetarian for everyone to enjoy all the same. This year, we spent it at a relative’s home so I debated if we should bring something for my mom and me to eat or if we should eat before going there, just like we do for other type of occasions/celebrations.

We decided to make something to bring over because Thanksgiving is such a food celebration, it would feel weird not to eat anything while there. We decided to bring my Tomato Bruschetta as an appetizer because the hosts totally love it… I made a new version of my cranberry preserves, this time with a guava/piña Caribbean twist… and as the main event I prepared a Wild Mushroom Lasagna.

I’ve already mentioned The Boys Farmer’s Market… and they usually have such fresh mushrooms that I could not pass up the opportunity to cook something with an assortment of fresh wild mushrooms. I picked them all, not one came inside a package. It was wonderful…

WILD MUSHROOM LASAGNA

For the Mushroom Filling:
2 small Portobello mushrooms caps, sliced
5 large white mushrooms, sliced
¼ lbs oyster mushrooms, separated into “leaves”
½ large yellow onion, diced
¼ tsp thyme leaves
2 tbs minced fresh parsley leaves
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
For the Lasagna:
1 cup Gruyère cheese, shredded
1 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 ½ cups part-skim ricotta cheese
8 ounces cream cheese
2 tbs minced fresh parsley leaves, divided
3 tbs olive oil
½ large yellow onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 tbs spelt flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
9 whole wheat no-boil lasagna noodles
¼ cup Gorgonzola cheese, finely crumbled
½ cup of mozzarella cheese, shredded

 

First, you make the mushroom filling…

  1. In the largest skillet you have, add olive oil and onions. Afterwards add the garlic. Sauté until the onions are translucent for about 5-7 minutes.
  2. Add the mushrooms in a single layer. Try not to crowd the pan… if it does, it’s better to make it in two separate batches. Allow the mushrooms to cook without moving them too much. They will brown and get a delicious flavor.
  3. After the mushrooms have browned on all sides, add salt, thyme and pepper. Mix a few more times and add the parsley. Allow the mushrooms to cool before adding them to the lasagna. You could also make this the night before if you’d like.

To make the sauce…

  1. Add olive oil to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook, until beginning to soften, about 2 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring frequently, about 1 ½ minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Gradually whisk in milk and broth. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to boil, whisking frequently. Add salt and bay leaf and reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and making sure to scrape bottom and corners of saucepan.
  2. While the sauce cooks, place shredded Gruyère and 1/2 cup Parmesan in large heatproof bowl.
  3. Also, combine ricotta, black pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley in medium bowl. Set both bowls aside.
  4. Add the cream cheese to the thickened sauce. Stir until the cheese has melted. Remove saucepan from heat and discard bay leaf. Gradually whisk 1/4 cup sauce into ricotta mixture. Pour remaining sauce over Gruyère mixture and stir until smooth; set aside.

Now we assemble…

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2.  Take a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray.
  3. Distribute 1/2 cup sauce in bottom of baking dish. Place 3 noodles in single layer on top of sauce.
  4. Spread 1/2 the ricotta mixture evenly over noodles and sprinkle evenly with parmesan and ½ the Gorgonzola. Drizzle more sauce evenly over cheese. Add a layer of the cooked mushrooms.
  5. Repeat the layering of dry noodles, sauce, ricotta, parmesan, Gorgonzola, mushrooms and more sauce.
  6. Place final 3 noodles on top and cover completely with remaining sauce, spreading with rubber spatula and allow spilling over noodles. Sprinkle evenly with more parmesan and ½ cup mozzarella.
  7. Cover lasagna with a piece of parchment paper and a piece of foil. Bake until edges are just bubbling, 25 to 30 minutes.
  8. Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes until surface is spotty brown. Cool 15 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons parsley.

 

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Arroz Kristina

26 Aug

My friends from French class and I used to meet at Chez Kristina every Tuesday to practice our French grammar and practice our vocabulary and speaking fluidity.  Since last Summer we took an indefinite break from our weekly get-togethers and I truly miss them. 

Kristina was gracious enough to open up the doors to her house each week and also usually made us dinner.  Many times we offered to help and these reunions were the reason or excuse for many recipes shared here – Mushroom Goat Cheese spread, Cranberry Trifle, “Shrimp” Creole, and the Pita Pizzas made with Spinach and Tomato Sauce.  But many times, Kristina surprised us with a creation all her own. 

One of these creations was what I lovingly call Arroz Kristina – a rice Kristina made in the oven so little tending in necessary.  The flavor is spectacular and it’s great to make for yourself or for company, just like Kristina made it for us.   I tried a few times before this recipe with little success.  It was mostly my fault for screwing up the liquid measurements to accommodate for whole-grain rice.  But recently I discovered Texmati rice, whole grain basmati-style rice apparently grown in Texas that cooks almost exactly was white long-grain rice – similar in texture, liquids to use, time to cook.  This rice is FAST!!!

After discovering Texmati rice and having a pint of mushrooms in my fridge about to spoil, I decided to give Arroz Kristina another serious try…  and the results were as good as the original.

ARROZ KRISTINA

¾ cup of Texmati whole-grain brown rice
1 pint button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
½ red onion, diced
½ green bell pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbs ume plum vinegar
½ cup frozen spinach or  2 cups fresh baby spinach
¼ cup walnuts, chopped – you can use any nut you wish…  I’ve used pecans also
1 cup water or vegetable broth
About 2 tbs olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
¼ cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
 

 

  1. Pre-heat oven to 400F
  2. In a medium-sized skillet over medium heat, pour about 1 tbs of olive oil and sauté the diced onions and peppers.    After a few minutes, add the garlic cloves.  Stir to combine.   Add the mushrooms and stir so the olive oil in the pan coats them and so the garlic doesn’t stay all together in the bottom to potentially burn.
  3. After a few minutes of cooking and the mushrooms browning a bit, add the vinegar and season with salt and pepper.    Cook for a few minutes for the mushrooms to absorb the flavors and cook completely.  After a few minutes, set aside to cool a bit.
  5. In a glass casserole dish, add the rice, frozen spinach (no need to defrost at all) or chopped fresh baby spinach leaves, walnuts or pecans, cooked mushroom mixture and water or vegetable broth.  Mix together to blend and season with a bit of salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.  Be careful here and try to avoid over salting… remember you seasoned the mushrooms so keep that in mind.   Cover with foil paper.
  6. Place in oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  At about the 1 hour mark, check the rice and fluff and move a bit if necessary.  Keep covered and leave in oven the additional 15 minutes.
  7. After time has elapsed, uncover, add the cheese, cover again and turn off oven.  Let the cheese melt with the residual heat in the oven.

 

The color of the dish might be a monotone brown, but the flavors are really good.    You could also use fresh spinach and the color would be greener…  but using frozen spinach is just as good and super easy to have always at hand in the freezer.

I want to thank Kristina for always opening up the doors to her house for our French extra-curricular rendez-vous.  I am extremely grateful for her hospitality, but most of all for her friendship.  Hope that we can retake these weekly meetings, if not in her house, possibly in mine.  And possibly start sharing once again new recipes we can all share with you…

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