Brian and I undergo quite some mushrooms. Since we don't eat masses of meat, mushrooms make a quite exact manner to feature bulk and texture to our ordinary vegetarian fare, together with pasta and eggs. We purchase most of our mushrooms from the Whole Earth Center in Princeton, in which the natural white button mushrooms promote for virtually $2.29 a pound. That's quite a chunk much less than our neighborhood supermarkets commonly charge for traditional mushrooms which are to be had in plastic applications, and as an advantage, they do no longer leave us with a plastic package deal deal to get rid of. So pretty tons whenever we go to the Whole Earth Center, we make a component of grabbing a pound of mushrooms at the side of whatever extraordinary bulk items we need.
On our remaining go to to Whole Earth, Brian decided that a number of the mushrooms in the white button bin were surprisingly large. This inspired him to strive an idea he'd been toying with for some time: crammed mushrooms. We had this recipe for an appetizer called spinach balls, made thru mixing Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix (it truely desires to be Pepperidge Farm, apparently) with chopped spinach and a few eggs for a binder, and Brian idea a version of this aggregate may make an brilliant stuffing for the shrooms. And because it occurred, we already had 1/2 a bundle of the stuffing blend accessible, left over from a preceding batch of the spinach balls, so this changed into a perfect time to try the experiment.
For the stuffing, Brian made a few adjustments to the simple spinach ball recipe, based totally on what we had to be had and what he belief could paintings first-class with the mushrooms. He ended up with this:
BRIAN'S SPINACH-STUFFED SHROOMS
Remove the stems from 10 large white mushrooms and chop them. Dice 1/2 red onion, mince 1 clove garlic, and sauté all the veggies in a pan until they start to soften. Add 4 oz. chopped frozen spinach and sauté until all the veggies are soft.
In a bowl, mix 4 oz. Pepperidge Farm Herbed Stuffing Mix, 1 jumbo egg, 1/4 vegetable stock, and 1/4 tsp. salt. Stir in the sautéed veggies.
Spoon this combination into the mushroom caps and bake at 375?F for 30-40 mins or until browned.
These proved to be fairly tasty, however quite tough to devour. These mushrooms have been too large to address as hors d'oeuvres, choosing them up and munching them down in a single chew, so we had to eat them with a knife and fork?However sadly the cooked mushrooms have been instead slippery, so even as we sliced into them, the stuffing may want to slide off the base. So we ended up attempting to spear the slice of mushroom and the escaped stuffing on the fork together with a purpose to consume them as a unit. Once I managed to get everything it into my mouth, the flavors labored collectively quite well, but I stored wishing that the stuffing combination have been crammed into some factor else that would maintain it extra securely.
Given that this recipe is a piece time-ingesting to make, and for the cause that we understand so many unique proper activities with mushrooms which may be simply as tasty and a lot less complex, I do no longer count on we're probable to make this unique dish once more. But we can in all likelihood preserving the recipe for the stuffing mixture available, thinking about it'd work nicely in some different context. Perhaps we could stuff it into a few special veggie, like peppers or squash, or in all likelihood we may additionally need to just stuff it right right into a casserole dish and devour it simple. If we can discern out a matzo-primarily based same for the Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix, we should even make a version of it for Passover subsequent week.
