This afternoon's menu consisted of the following:
Puff Pastry Wrapped Brie served with mini toasts
Spinach & Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms
Olives & Cheese
A simple menu but, it was just the three of us at home today (and one of us, being only 2 years old, doesn't consume much). So, better to keep it simple but tasty.
The Spinach and Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms were inspired by one of my favorite salads (spinach salad with bacon and mushrooms) but the recipe was created using only items I already had in my fridge (I've kinda been over-extending myself in the grocery-budget department so, I figured I could come up with SOMETHING without making yet another trip to the store).
Ingredients:
Half of a package of bacon (about 10 strips), cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 tbsp butter
1/2 finely diced yellow onion
~24 crimini mushrooms, brushed clean
1 pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drain of all excess water
1/2 c dry white wine
4 oz cream cheese, at room temp
1/2 c fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/2 bread crumbs*
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat a large skillet on the stove on medium heat. Put the bacon bits in the pan to cook, stirring occasionally. While the bacon is cooking chop your onions and hollow out your mushrooms. To hollow out the criminis, I suggest using a melon-baller. A melon-baller makes it easy to hollow out a clean well in the center of the mushroom.
Save the bits of mushroom you carve out, finely dice them as you did the onions and set aside. Once the bacon is crispy (but not cremated), remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and drain on a plate lined with a clean paper towel. Drain most of the bacon grease from the pan, leaving about 1 tbsp remaining. Return the skillet to the heat and add in 1 tbsp butter. Once the butter has melted, saute your onions and mushroom bits on medium heat until onions are translucent.
Squeeze all of the liquid you can out of the thawed spinach then add the spinach to the onions and mushrooms in the pan. Cook for about one minute then deglaze the pan with the half cup of white wine. Be sure to scrape up all of the tasty bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan throughout the saute process--they should come up easily when the wine is added and they hold a lot of flavor. Once most of the wine has cooked out and the pan is fairly dry, remove from the heat and let cool to room temp.
Once your onion/spinach mixture has cooled, transfer to a medium sized bowl. To the bowl add the cream cheese and Parmesan cheese and mix well. Next add in the egg yolk, salt and pepper--stir to combine. Finally, fold in your cooked bacon bits.
Arrange your hollowed out mushroom caps on a baking sheet (about 2 inches apart) and then fill each one with about a tablespoon of filling--the cavity should be filled and a little filling mounded on top.
Sprinkle the top of each filled mushroom with a little bit of bread crumbs then bake for about 20 minutes or until the filling has cooked through and the bread crumbs have toasted to a light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before serving. Enjoy!
*I used garlic bread crumbs that I made a month or so ago and keep in the freezer. Whenever I have a heel of a loaf or a chunk of good crusty bread left over, I wrap it up and throw it in the freezer. When I have a good collection of bread chunks, I toast them in the oven with a little olive oil and salt. After they've toasted, I pulse them in the food processor until they are turned into a consistent sized crumb. Seal the bread crumbs in a mason jar or Ziploc bag then return to the freezer. Voila! Fresh bread crumbs whenever you need them.
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