NYE: Stuffed Mushrooms

Alright everybody, I know it's been awhile since I've posted and I'm sorry for that. I have not really been around enough to do proper cooking worthy of a new post. That and I was out of town for Christmas, so I did not get to cook there! Here's some NYE goodness!

Ingredients:
1 lb White Button Mushrooms
Couscous(2 cups Couscous, 3 cups Water)
1 Green Bell Pepper, diced
1/3 cup Scallions, diced
Teriyaki Sauce
Brandy*
1800 Silver Tequila*
Dry Sherry*
Port*
Ancho Chili Powder
Garlic Salt
Sesame Seeds
Shredded Asiago Cheese

*ALCOHOL

Tonight I'm going to a shindig at a friends place where I get to bring food! Well, I didn't list the Hummus I am bringing on here because it's the same recipe as I have posted about already! This Stuffed Mushrooms recipe is very involved and should be wonderful.

I began by utilizing my Rice Cooker. 2 cups of Couscous and 3 cups of Water. Plug in, hit the tab to COOK, red light comes on. Let it be.

Now to the ingredients. I was going to use tomatoes too, but that did not occur.

Now take the stems out of the Mushrooms. Place stems to the side.

Now get your alcohol.

Using a large skillet, add in your alcohol. I'd list them, but all the alcohol goes in this part! I used about a 1/4 cup of each with maybe a little more of the Brandy.

Turn the heat to MEDIUM. Once it begins to boil, add in a dusting of Ancho Chili Powder. Then in go the Mushroom caps, gill side down. Cover and reduce heat a little bit. Make sure to flip them in about 2 minutes.

Now there are those pesky mushroom stems. Slice them up and put them in a sauce pot. Add in your diced Scallions and diced Bell Pepper. To this, I added a dash of Tequila and Brandy, along with some Teriyaki Sauce.

Make sure to unplug your Rice Cooker when the Couscous is done so it doesn't get dried out. It should be about 2 minutes after you flipped the Mushroom Caps now, so turn off the heat and remove from that burner. Leave covered so they keep the heat while you tend to other things.

Let the Mushroom Stems, Scallions, and Bell Pepper cook for about 2 minutes. Turn off heat and turn to your Food Processor. Take them out and put them in. Add a sprinkling of Sesame Seeds. Puree.

Now comes the plating part. I have them in an oven ready dish in case we need to heat them up later on. I first spooned in some Couscous.

Then I added the puree mixture. Topped it with a sprinkling of Shredded Asiago Cheese. Enjoy!

Buffalo Chips

Alright, so I am a big fan of the chain food business known as Buffalo Wild Wings. It's a great place to watch some football at. Well, I love their Buffalo Chips appetizer dish. It's very simple and I thought that maybe I could make them at home. So I did.

Ingredients:
4 Potatoes
Vegetable Oil
Garlic Salt
Sea Salt
Shredded Cheese

Alright, so I began by pouring about 2 cups worth of Vegetable Oil into a saucepan. I added a dash of Garlic Salt for flavor. Turn the heat to MEDIUM.

Now slice your Potatoes into thin strips. You decide how thick/thin you want them. Once the Vegetable Oil is boiling, add the Potato slices.

Stir around as they boil/cook so they don't adhere to the bottom of the saucepan.

You can tell they are done as they will be soft and pliant. Take them off, strain the excess oil away, and plate. Add Shredded Cheese on top, microwave for 30 seconds to melt the Cheese quicker. Sprinkle with Sea Salt. Enjoy.

Appetizer: Mushroom Mania

Today after a long week at work, I decided to try some fun cooking. That thought process ended with a decision upon the Mushrooms I had in the fridge. Well, if you have not noticed I cook them a lot. A whole lot. This time I varied it up a little bit by cooking them in 3 different ways for one plate. Boom.








Ingredients:
1 lb Button Mushrooms

Asian Spiced:
1/3 cup Port
1/3 cup Sherry
1/4 cup Soy Sauce
1/4 cup Lime Juice
Sweet Paprika
Fennel Powder
Fenugreek Powder
Ancho Chili Powder
Garlic Salt

Local Herbed:
2 sprig Rosemary
1/4 cup Oregano
3 sprig Thyme
1/3 cup Olive Oil

Decadent Dessert
1/4 stick Butter
1/3 cup Lime Juice
1/4 cup Orange Liquor
1/2 cup Cilantro Leaves

PART 1:
Alright, so I will take you through this recipe one part at a time to avoid confusion. Note, the Mushrooms I sliced up into one big bowl and took out about 1/3 for each recipe.

I'll start with the Asian Spiced Mushrooms. I began by gathering the materials.

Turn the heat to medium. Then use a small sauce pot and poured in the Port, Sherry, Soy Sauce, and Lime Juice. I added in the spices mixed together. I used like a spoonful of each, maybe 2 of the Garlic Salt. Stir together.

Once the liquid starts to steam a little bit, add the Mushrooms and make sure they get coated by the mixture.

Now, they should take about 7 minutes to get properly cooked/spongey feeling.

I chose to take them out and place them in a ramekin but a small bowl should also suffice. I then put in the microwave so it stayed warm until all 3 were done.

PART 2:
The second one is the Local Herbed Mushrooms. I call it this because the herbs I used were from my personal garden. I began like usual, gathering my ingredients.

Now I stripped the leaved off the Rosemary and Oregano, while the Thyme I just cut up into smaller pieces. I then put a small saucepan on the stove, turned the heat to medium, and poured in the Olive Oil.

I then added the herbs.

Once that began to simmer, I added in the Mushrooms.

This recipe should take about 7 minutes as well, make sure to stir.

Do the same as Part 1 in keeping them warm once you take them off the stovetop.

Part 3:
This last part is the Decadent Dessert Mushroom portion. I call it this because when it was sampled, a comment about how it tastes like a dessert stuck with me. Sounds fitting.

I began by gathering the ingredients.

Now, using a small saucepan I added the Butter and turned the heat to medium.

Quickly after the Butter began to melt, I added the Lime Juice, Orange Liquor, and Cilantro Leaves. It looks amazing to me, maybe I should make a drink with all but the Butter?

This should take about 8 or 9 minutes since it took me a little longer than the other 2 parts. Make sure to mix it around.

Now, once this is done just turn the heat off and move to an unused burner.

The end part here is where you plate all 3 Mushroom Recipes. I went in the order listed above, however I overlapped their cooking times using different burners as well. Enjoy.

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!

Chef's Original: Appetizer a l'oignon

Today I sort of threw together an entire meal on a whim. I was informed that my girlfriend was hungry and then noticed I had a fridge full of yummy goodness. So of course with any good meal, I began with a Chef's Original appetizer plate.





Ingredients:
4 Pearl of Boiler Onions
Cilantro
Chives
Sage
Basil
Butter
Italian Seasoning Mis
Cheese
Baguette(bread)

I began by putting some butter in a saucepan, I want to say about 1/3 of a stick. Dice up your chives, sage, cilantro, and basil. Put them to the side.

Turn the stovetop to medium and have the butter start to melt. Once it is mostly melted, swirl it around to make sure the butter covers the entire bottom of the saucepan. Now toss in the chives, sage, and basil you put to the side earlier. Mix them into the butter.

Now grab your Pearl or Boiler Onions and cut the top and bottom off, as well as the outer layer. I find this makes them taste better. Toss them in when this is done. Mix around with the herbs and butter.

Continure to mix them around every thirty seconds or so to give them an even cook through. They should start to turn translucent when they are cooked enough, turn the burner off.

At this point you should have your baguette cut into small pieces, or bought that way like I did, and proceed to put some shredded cheese onto the pieces of bread. You then place the onion on top of the cheese, along with a dusting of italian seasoning mix. Enjoy.

Quick Lunchtime Appetizer Snack

Today I was perusing a newly purchased book on appetizers and saw that a lot of them seem quite tasty. After that, I picked up my previous book on appetizers and decided to quickly throw something together for a snack.







Ingredients:
Wheat Thins Crackers: Tuscan Herb
Tomato Sauce (recipe from this blog!)
Italian Herb Mix
Shredded Cheese

In making this, the recipe is very simple. Cracker, some Tomato Sauce on top, then choose what cheese to put on top, and finally topping it with a light dusting of Italian Herb Mix. The cheeses I chose were Gruyere, Asiago, and a Quattro Fromagio mix. I then put them in the microwave for 25 seconds, took off and ready to eat. Enjoy.

Summertime Appetizer Snack

So as mentioned in my previous post, I made couscous. I also decided that I should make a snack for my girlfriend. I don't think that just couscous alone is enough, so I decided that those Cremini Mushrooms in the fridge needed to be dealt with...as a sauce!

Ingredients:
Mushroom Sauce:
12 Cremini Mushrooms
1 bottle Dark Beer
Orange Juice
Lemon Juice

Green Onions/Scallions

Couscous:
2 cups Pearl Couscous
4 cups Water
dash of Sea Salt
Italian Herb Mix (few pinches)

The couscous was cooked in my rice cooker according to the instructions that it came with, and of course with some herb mix added in. You start this up and let it be since it doesn't need any more attention.

The Mushroom Sauce began with a small saucepot on the stove, where I put in about 3/4 worth of standard beer bottle's beer. Set the heat to medium, any higher and it looks like a cloud is emerging from the pot, trust me...I found this out.

I grabbed my trusty food processor and proceeded to slice up the Cremini Mushrooms and then dice up quite finely. Then pour/dump the mushrooms into the saucepot with the beer. You'll probably have to scoop it out since it is quite sticky at this point, not sure why. Stir.

Let it go for a few minutes, but make sure to watch it in case you have to turn down the heat a little bit or stir. Add in the Orange Juice, maybe 1/2 a cup's worth. As for the lemon juice, I want to say like 10 drops worth were added, barely anything at all. Stir.

At this point your couscous should be done and the rice cooker on 'warm'. So now grab some Green Onions/Scallions and cut them up about halfway down into small chunks. Your mushroom sauce can go for as long as you want it to, but I turned off the heat at this point and dished everything up. Enjoy.