Stuffed Mushrooms

Last night we planned on having leftover BBQ chicken from last weekend and I wanted to add something to the meal to make it a little more special. The kids have finally all found a fondness for mushrooms and I thought it would be a good idea to make stuffed mushrooms. My fireman had them at the dentist's office for their cleaning and I was on my way home from work, so I swung by Krogers and got 3 containers of button mushrooms.

I rinsed them, I know, you can just wipe them off, but I rinse them. Then I lightly wiggled the stems until they come off. I had to use a spoon on a couple of the more stubborn ones. I diced about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of onions and green bell pepper. Then I diced up most of the mushroom stems. Because to me, onions are best when sauteed in butter (or margerine). So, if I add some stems in there, I get some extra yummy flavor. It's best if you can dice them very small for when you get to stuffing. I was making a larger batch than normal, cause I got a lot of kids! It ended up filling a 9x13 and a 9x9.

 I melted about 3 tablespoons of margerine in hubby's cast iron skillet and cooked onions and bell peppers a couple of minutes until they were softened, then threw in the stems until they started to sweat and cook down a bit. There should be a lot of liquid that will help when you add the breadcrumbs for binding. I also threw in about 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and about 1/2 tsp garlic powder. If you use garlic salt, omit the extra salt. Yum! This smells great!

I don't like store bought bread crumbs. They have very little taste or smell. I like to make my own. I discovered this because I didn't HAVE bread crumbs and found later that store bought ones really lack flavor. For this I threw 4 slices of bread in the toaster and turned it to VERY BROWN. Then I let them sit a few minutes. If you can get this to start while you're prepping the other stuff it's better. There is still a little moisture in the bread and waiting helps to dry it out. Then you throw it in a food processor.

Pardon my tiny food processor.

And I ended up doing two slices at a time for about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of bread crumbs. Smells wonderful. Some of the crumbs are very small and a few are a little larger for texture. Then I added about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese and stirred it into the sauteed veggies.

Then I used a small spoon and pressed the stuffing in the mushrooms. You can press quite a bit in and let it mound some. I had a couple of spoonfuls left over. I'm not ashamed to say they went in my mouth.

Stuffed! I took a couple of tablespoons of margerine and cut small chunks to drop into the pans, around the mushrooms. If you just baked them now, they would dry out, but the margerine on the bottom lets them sautee a bit. Oh, yum! I baked them at 350 for 30 minutes. If you can, broil the tops for 3-4 minutes to get them extra crumchy.

And this is all that was left. I covered these and will pop them in the toaster oven tonight to crisp them up and finish them. They were delish!

Tomorrow I'm going to have a fun remodeling post!