Editor’s note: This post is the first of a regular series that will be appearing on Fridays. The idea is to try new “real food” recipes that can be prepared on the weekend. Of course, each recipe can also be prepared during the week (that’s when I’m trying it), but with the hectic schedules of most, a recipe might be easier to try on the weekend when work is generally less of a factor. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to my feed. Thanks.

As part of the holistic approach to improving my health, I am searching for creative ways to “get into” vegetables. I didn’t grow up eating a lot of fresh greens, so finding vegetables that I like has been a long and continuous road, fraught with danger (or so I feared). However, despite my initial skepticism, I’ve found that the more well-prepared, well-seasoned vegetable dishes that I try, the more I like them, which even I find hard to believe. In my case, the key to this is how they are prepared.

This recipe is based on the principles that a) you can never get enough vegetables in your diet, so eat as much as you can, b) if you cook your vegetables, it should be done with reasonable skill and attention, and c) (and most importantly) eating vegetables should be about the pleasure of doing so because the flavor is out of this world, not simply because it’s “good for you.”

The concept of eating vegetables solely because they’re good is a nice idea, but based on my experience that is not a good enough reason for me to stick to a new dietary habit. I simply won’t eat them regularly if they don’t taste good.

Here’s recipe number 1 - I hope you enjoy it for the flavor first, the experience of cooking second, and the health benefits third. I’ve prepared these dishes side by side numerous times, sometimes in the quantities mentioned here, and other times for larger groups. Both times they turned out well, and were enjoyed by our guests (or at least I’m sure they didn’t have to spit it out ).

Friday Fit recipe #1: Stuffed mushrooms and grilled seasoned vegetables

This week’s recipe post is technically two recipes, but the combination is excellent, and the ingredients are shared between the two dishes. Preparing both side-by-side is simple, and it makes a great lunch, dinner, or two parts of a dinner that is served in courses. Each dish separately work great as an hors d’oeuvre.

Both dishes are prepared on a grill and in foil, so the clean up is easy. You can also prepare the mushrooms in the oven and the vegetables on the stovetop, but the grill’s heat really gives it an additional flavor nuance that I prefer.

Ingredients

For the stuffed mushrooms:

- 10 crimini mushrooms (serves 2)
- 2 oz. goat cheese
- 4 pieces of sundried tomatoes in oil
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Sea salt and fresh pepper

For the grilled vegetables:

- 1 red or yellow bell pepper
- Handful of fresh green beans (or asparagus)
- The stems from the mushrooms
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Herbs de Provence
- Good balsamic vinegar
- Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
- Tablespoon or so of toasted sliced almonds, to taste

Prepare

As I mentioned earlier, these two dishes can easily be prepared side by side, will cook on the same heat setting on the grill, and have approximately the same cooking time.

Here’s a quick list of steps if you just want to “get to it” and you’re comfortable feeling your way through recipes the way I often do:

1. Create two 12-inch rectangular foil trays, 1 open and one that is open but can be sealed later as a pouch
2. Wash and dry the mushrooms and vegetables
3. Cut up the bell pepper and snap the stems off of the beans, then put in the open foil tray
4. Cut the stems out of the mushrooms, leaving the tops whole and placing the mushroom stems in with the vegetables
5. Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, herbs, and salt and pepper to the vegetable tray and toss the vegetables to mix. Let sit for a few minutes, and light the grill and get it hot.
6. Julienne 4 1-inch sundried tomatoes, and then mash the goat cheese together with sundried tomatoes and a tablespoon or so of the oil that the tomatoes are packed in
7. Stuff the goat cheese mixture into each mushroom generously, placing each one face up in the open foil pocket
8. Drizzle the mushrooms that are on the foil with olive oil and a little bit of salt
9. Seal the foil pocket of mushrooms and put a small slit in the top
10. Place both on the hot foil trays on the grill and cook until the juices in the bottom of the vegetable tray begin to caramelize
11. After the vegetables are cooked and removed to a serving dish, sprinkle the toasted sliced almonds on top

Serve

These two dishes are best served with a glass or two of red wine, although a more acidic white also complements them well. My personal favorite with this is a Malbec wine, although its not really critical - essentially, drink with it a wine you enjoy.

Serving size: In general I serve 4 or 5 mushrooms each, and lean heavily on the vegetables as the main dish. These dishes are also excellent to serve as part of a tapas style dinner alongside good quality hard and soft cheeses, cured meats, and fresh fruit.

Notes and additional tips

By and large, its hard to mess this recipe up when you’re cooking it as long as you’re somewhat attentive during the cooking process. You can overcook the mushrooms until they shrivel up into very small caps, but if you’re paying attention to them you can generally catch this in process. To spice things up a bit, try adding a pinch of cayenne pepper to the goat cheese.

One other thing - both the vegetables and the mushrooms are best served hot, although the vegetables in particular make a great leftover the next day as a salad addition.

Washing mushrooms
When you wash mushrooms, you should do so quickly to remove any remaining dirt, but try not to let them stay in the water for too long (you can also dust them off instead if you like, but washing them quickly in cold water generally won’t hurt criminis). In case you’re concerned about washing these little sponges in water, here’s a great article from Kitchen Savvy on how to wash mushrooms - essentially, if you choose the right mushrooms and wash them briskly, the water absorption is minimal.

Slicing and de-seeding bell peppers
Check this article for a cool technique to easily cut and de-seed a bell pepper.

Better balsamic is worth the expense
Balsamic vinegar is an entire cultural science in Italy, and like fine wine, the better you can afford, the better it tastes. In general, higher quality balsamic vinegars will taste generally a little less acidic and lean more toward a sweetness. Believe it or not, we’ve even tried small amounts of particularly good balsamic vinegar on ice cream, which was surprisingly good.

Whatscookinginamerica.com has a pretty good article on understanding the basics of choosing a good quality balsamic vinegar, and why its important.

I hope you enjoy it. Suggestions are welcome!

Bookmark It

No related posts.