food comas

Woohoo! A new cookbook! I recieved Rachel Ray’s Look + Cook book on Christmas and I was super excited to try some of her mouthwatering recipes.  I decided to take on the Stuffed Baby Bellas, which is a lighter version of the traditional stuffed mushrooms. My first attempt at making stuffed mushrooms seemed to go alright, although I found lots of things that I could do differently the next time around.

First off, the turkey I chose was lean ground turkey, which ended up cooking a bit dry. Next time I would probably go with something less lean, as well as reduce the baking time. Second, I doubled the recipe for a party I was preparing for, and I made 200% way too much stuffing! I could have just doubled the mushrooms only and not the stuffing and it would have been fine. Lastly, the entire dish overall could have used more salt. An easy fix would be to sprinkle some salt on the caps before stuffing them to enhance the flavor. All in all, this was a fun recipe to try, and friends enjoyed it, just make sure to eat them right away when they are nice and hot.

Stuffed Baby Bellas

Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray for Food Network Magazine

Yields: 16 mushrooms.. plus more-than-you’ll-possibly-need stuffing..

Ingredients

• 16 baby portabella mushrooms (creminis)
• 1 pound ground chicken or turkey breast
• 1 teaspoon fennel seed, 1/3 palmful
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1 cup shredded asiago cheese
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, a couple handfuls
• 1 10-ounce box frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and wrung dry in a clean kitchen towel
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)
• 1/4 cup pine nuts or chopped almonds

Directions:

1. Wipe the mushrooms clean with a damp cloth. Remove the stems by pinching them and carefully twisting them off. Chop the stems. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground meat, fennel seed, onion, garlic, lemon zest, half of the cheese, the chopped mushroom stems, breadcrumbs and spinach and season with salt and pepper.

3. Brush mushroom caps lightly with EVOO, add a little bit of salt first and stuff the mixture into the caps.
Arrange the caps on a rimmed baking sheet or in a baking dish. Leave some room around each mushroom to prevent the caps from getting steamy. Sprinkle the remaining cheese and the nuts on the caps and transfer to the oven.

4. Bake until the mushrooms are tender and the filling is cooked through, about 25 minutes. Serve warm.