Chef's Original: Mushroom Delight!

Yesterday I went and did a little bit of food shopping after work. I noticed that there were some shiitake mushrooms on sale, so naturally I picked up some. I also picked up some basil leaves and scallions. I decided then that I would do something with these ingredients, but had no idea until today. About an hour ago I decided that I needed to cook, which ended up starting off with this recipe.







Ingredients
Mushroom Sauce
Shiitake Mushrooms
Scallions
Basil Leaves
Olive Oil
Port
Lime Juice
Soy Sauce
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Ground Black Pepper
Fennel Powder
Italian Herb Mix
Sweet Paprika

The Rest
Baguette
Blue Cheese
Asiago Cheese
Small Basil Leaves

Alright, first step here is to gather most, if not all, of your ingredients. I left a few out since I just decided to use them as I was cooking.

I bought pre-shredded Shiitake Mushrooms so I skipped the step of cutting them into small pieces. Technically it is optional since you puree them later on. I didn't take a picture of just the mushrooms since they were pre-shredded, so we start with where I chopped the Scallions and put them in the mixing bowl on top of the mushrooms.

I then shredded and cut the Basil Leaves into small pieces, and into the bowl they went.

Alright, now grab a small sauce pot since it should contain everything easily enough. Put a dollop of Olive Oil in there. Dollop = not a lot, but a good size drop or thirty. Turn the heat to medium and throw in your mix.

Now, a good minute or three into the cooking and stirring I added some Port to the mix. I added it due to the fact that the Olive Oil was mostly gone and I did not want to deal with burning anything. Plus, Port is tasty. I also added a little bit of Soy Sauce, maybe a spoonful or so, to meld it all together.

Let it cook for awhile, stirring and mixing it up every so often. I want to say I left it cook for about 5 more minutes. This is what it looks like:

Dang, looks tasty! Now into the food processor it goes. Puree it for awhile until you get the consistency you want to achieve. Taste testing is encouraged at this phase.

Now to the plating part of this dish.

I bought a bag of sliced Baguette sections, however it is easy enough to do on your own as well. I put about a 1/2 spoonful of Blue Cheese crumbles on each one.

I then scooped out some of the Mushroom Sauce mixture on top of the Blue Cheese. This sauce was still hot so as to melt the Blue Cheese a little bit as well.

Dang, that picture was kind of terrible. Sorry everybody, I would take another picture but everything was eaten already.

On top of the Sauce I put a pinch of shredded Asiago Cheese.

I Topped this off with a Small Basil Leaf for each one. Enjoy!