Friday, March 06, 2009

Food on Friday: Veggie friendly

While many of the recipes I've written about on this blog have been pescatarian or poultry-eater-friendly, there was a time when I was a vegetarian. Meat's not cheap, especially these days, so we try to eat meatless or low-meat dinners at least a couple of times a week. This recipe was adapted from one Dan found in a vegetarian cookbook at the library, back when we first moved in together and he was trying to learn more about cooking for folks that don't eat much meat (because back then, I didn't). Without further ado, the meatless main dish I made last night:

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms
(serves 2 main dish or 4 side dish servings)

4 portabellas, stems removed (try to find ones with intact caps, it makes filling easier)
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped finely
1/2 yellow or orange bell pepper, chopped finely
1/2 onion, chopped finely
stems of portabellas, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, pressed
2 green onions, diced (optional)
small amount of vegetable oil
seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, thyme, marjoram)
about 1-2 oz crumbled goat cheese
about 2 oz grated or thinly sliced mozzarella

Preheat oven to 425F. Remove stems from mushrooms and place them gill-side down on a lightly greased baking pan and cook about 15 minutes, remove from oven.

Meanwhile, prep veggies (onion, garlic, bell pepper, mushroom stems) and sautee in a bit of vegetable oil (we use canola). Add seasonings. Sautee until veggies are soft and onions are translucent, about 8 minutes. Add green onions and stir, removing from heat. Remove mushrooms from the oven and flip them over so the undersides are up. Spoon filling into each cap (any extra can be used in an omelet later) and top with goat cheese crumbles and mozzarella. Put back in oven and bake another 10 minutes or until cheese is nicely melted and brown.

Serve with whatever you like - bread, salad, other sauteed veggies, etc. These are good reheated as well.

2 comments:

Cilicious said...

When did you quit being vegetarian? For some reason I thought you two *always* were veggies.
Oh well, the portabellas sound nice.
We've been eating them a lot lately, sometimes I stuff them with crab.

MLE said...

Cil, I was only veggie for part of college; stopped on my first Eurotrip for a variety of reasons. Dan was far more carnivorous before we were together, and now we are at a happy medium; we eat a lot of poultry and seafood and Dan eats red meat when we go out to eat but he only cooks it at home when I'm not around.