JUST THE STUFFED MUSHROOM TIP

Let's play a little game called Just the Stuffed Mushroom Tip.

That’s how it all starts. An innocent maiden voyage evolves into an exploration deep into the unknown. Justify it any way you want to. We can pretend it’s a game. Start with the tip and see how it feels. If it’s no bueno, fair enough. But then again, we’ve already gone this far. What’s a few more steps into the abyss? I mean the collateral damage has already been sustained. So why not enjoy it for what it’s worth? We can write it off as youthful indiscretion. An official OOPSIE! Let’s blame the extra bottle of wine. We both should have known better. But we’re all adults and mature enough to move on. I’m glad we had this discussion. I feel better. Don’t you? Oh by the way, have you tried these killer stuffed mushrooms?

Total time: approximately 15 minutes
Projected cost: $10
Drinking Buddy: Red wine

Ingredients (serves 2):
1. 1 tablespoon of breadcrumbs
2. 1 pinch of salt
3. 1 tablespoon of honey
4. 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
5. 3 slices of bacon cut into small pieces (turkey and veggie ok)
6. 10 white mushrooms
7. 1 green onion diced
8. 10 small slivers of Brie cheese

Step 1
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly before removing the stem leaving the cap intact and deep. Cut up the stems into tiny pieces. Place the caps in a small bacon pan.

Step 2
Warm up a pan on medium-high heat. Fry up the bacon slices with the green onions, chopped mushroom stems, spinach, salt and bread crumbs. Cook it all down into edible goodness.

Step 3
Scoop a teaspoon of the stuffing into each mushoom cap, place a sliver of brie on top of each stuffed cap, and then drizzle the honey over each cap. Bake the stuffed caps until they are warmed through and the cheese melts (approx 5-7 minutes). Serve it up classy on a plate.

TIL THE BREAK OF DAWN-LET

Rock it all night long, til the break-a-break-a-dawn-let!

The butt crack of dawn will reveal its cruel self after you’ve been up all night dancing the horizontal mambo. But shame mixed with glee over the unspeakable acts of last night will subside when you take control in the kitchen. Sure you are short on sleep and long on orgasms. Your day may be shot being a productive worker bee turning society’s cogs. But don’t give up on today. Those bleary-eyes should see a world full of possibilities and reassessed plans. Get yourself the right nutrients and you can push right on through into the evening, banging all the way. Nothing says, “Good morning, now let’s get back to bed!” like an omelet. It’s got protein, veggies and the challenging flip that will fuel your body so you can break yet even more of God’s laws. Remember that in the name of banging, sometime you have to crack a few eggs.

Total time: approximately 12 minutes
Projected cost: $8
Drinking Buddy: not-so tenny

Ingredients (for two):
1. 4 eggs
2. ½ tbsp of olive oil
3. 2 tbsp of milk
4. 2 dashes of salt
5. 2 dashes of black pepper
6. 2 strips of bacon (turkey or veggie OK)
7. ½ a pear sliced thinly
8. 1 handful of chopped mushrooms
9. Thin slices of Brie cheese

Step 1
Beat the eggs thoroughly in a bowl with the milk, pepper and salt.

Step 2
Chop up the bacon in small slices and sauté in a pan with the pear and mushroom slices (approx 3 min).

Step 3
Warm up ½ the olive oil in a small non-stick pan on medium heat. Pour in ½ the egg mixture and cook until it is mostly firmed (approx 2 min). Pour in ½ the sautéed contents and Brie and carefully flip over with a spatula.

Slide immediately onto a plate and move onto round 2…of omelets.

SHROOM SHAKE THE ROOM BURGER

Shroom Shroom Ka'Boom!

Feel that rumbling? That’s not your stomach growling for something homemade and delicious. It’s the sound of a dance party emanating from a sandwich, reverberating across the room and making everything turn raver-licious. Close your eyes and you will see strobe lights. Suddenly we are all wearing baggy pants again and dancing with glow sticks, blissfully unaware how ridiculous we look to anyone sober. Like we care, right? It’s 1999 all over again and I know the DJ. Think of this shroom burger as the ultimate disco biscuit. It is so damn good, you feel like you are high on god knows what. You will certainly appear more attractive to whomever you serve it to. Now the two of you can shadow dance with your hands like epileptic classical music conductors. Rave on ‘til the break of dawn!

Total time: approximately 15 minutes
Projected cost: $12
Drinking Buddy: MO MOJO

Ingredients (serves 2):
1. 2 Portobello mushrooms
2. 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
3. 1 tbsp of olive oil
4. Mayonnaise at your discretion
5. 2 hamburger buns
6. 1 handful of shredded mozzarella
7. 1 onion cut in strips
8. 1 tomato sliced thinly
9. 2 slices of lettuce
10. 1 red CHIL sliced thinly
11. ½ an AVOCADO sliced thinly

Step 1
Wash the Portobello mushrooms, then remove the stems, scrape out the black gills, and finally marinate them in ½ a tablespoon of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar.

Step 2
Prepare the buns by lining the each top bun with the CHILI slices and covering them with the mozzarella. Toast the buns until the cheese melts and the bottom buns brown.

Step 3
Grill the mushrooms on the BBQ or stove tops down, dumping the remaining marinade into the mushroom cup. Cover the shrooms and cook until the bottom browns and softens (approx 5 min). Move onto Step 4 while you wait. Flip the portobellos and re-cover, cooking until that side softens (approx 4 min).

Step 4
Grill the onions in a pan with vegetable oil until they soften and brown (approx 6 min).

Step 5
Assemble the shroom burgers. First spread the mayonnaise or your favorite condom-ment on the bottom bun, and then add the grilled onions. Lay out across the top bun lettuce, tomato, avocado and the grilled mushroom.

Slap it all together, slice in half and serve.

Empty-the-Fridge Fritatta

You know all those poor vegetables that start to wilt? Don’t put them out of their misery, put them to good use! Make a fritatta!

This recipe was inspired by a Leek and Asparagus Fritatta recipe from the February Bon Appetit. But we figured, since we’re already making a fritatta, why not throw in a few more veggies? Potatoes? Yum! That last lonely zucchini? Perfect! As long as you’ve got 8 eggs on hand, just toss in whatever else you have and call it dinner. Heck, eat the leftovers the next morning and call it breakfast too.

Empty-the-Fridge Fritatta

Makes 4 servings.

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 cup chopped leeks (white and pale green parts only)
1 12-oz bunch thin asparagus, trimmed, cut on diagonal into 1-inch pieces
1 cup sliced stemmed shittake mushrooms
1 medium red potato, diced into 1/2 inch pieces
1 zucchini, diced
8 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
Preheat broiler. Heat butter or oil in heavy broilerproof 10-inch-diameter nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes and leeks and sautee until tender, about 4 minutes. Add asparagus, mushrooms, and zucchini, sprinkle lightly with salt, and sauté until tender, about 6 minutes.

Whisk eggs, 1/4 cup Parmesan, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in medium bowl. Add egg mixture to skillet; fold gently to combine. Cook until almost set. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top. Broil until fritatta is puffed and cheese begins to turn golden, about 3 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve.

The Baguette Incident.

So we’ve got the No-Knead Bread down to an art. And we were feeling pretty good about our bread-baking abilities (mistake #1). Hey, Taylor, why not try to make baguettes? (mistake #2).

The dough was way too wet (mistake #3) and the dough flattened out into long tubular blobs rather than nice thick ropes. That’s ok, we said, we’ll still have baguettes… they’ll just be mishapen. So we preheated the oven…

And that’s when the disaster happened.

You see, the recipe calls for steam. Steam makes the outer layer of the bread nice and crispy. Easy enough, right? Well, we don’t have a metal broiler pan like the recipe mentioned. So I popped a glass casserole dish into the oven with the baking sheet to preheat (mistake #4). Didn’t think that maybe a hot glass pan + not so hot water would equal such a mess…

But it did. That pan practically exploded the second I poured in the water. I screamed, and probably said a few words I shouldn’t have… but hey, you would do if a glass pan blew up in your oven.

So we put on some shoes, let the oven cool down, and then picked out the glass pieces one by one. Re-heated the oven (forgoing any mention of steam-anything in the recipe), and baked our even-flatter-by-that-time baguettes.

Decent bread. Definitely not a baguette in taste, texture, or appearance, but it was edible.

And I will never pour water into a hot glass pan again.

The end.