Mushroom-A-Polooza

I love a reason to make a themed dinner.  Some examples are last Super Bowl, Or more recently our unbirthday tea party.

This time I'm don't a themed themed dinner.  It is found to be a mushroom themed Super Bowl dinner.   What is a Super Bowl dinner you ask?  Is honestly just a bunch of appetizers. 

Kaylee and I have a sick addiction to mushrooms.  We could probably eat a couple pounds each in one sitting.   In order to feed this addiction every dish tonite has mushrooms in it.

When I do a themed dinner I have a tendency to overwhelm myself.   So, for this dinner I stick to fairly simple recipes and I brought in my best sous chefs.  These recipes will be great for your next party {and I'll let you have my sous chefs for a small fee} 

Smokehouse Flatbread

My favorite burger at Ruby Tuesday's was always the smokehouse burger.  There is a layer of melty cheddar cheese over caramelized barbecue sauce. Pure heaven!  I recreate this burger in vegetarian form quite often.  I decided that doing it on a flatbread would be great. 

Ingredients
1 recipe pizza dough
2-4 T barbecue sauce
8 oz mushrooms, sliced and sautéed
1 onion, sliced
2 T minced garlic
.5 cup cheddar cheese

Directions
1.  Preheat oven to 450°
2.  Roll out dough and bake on a greased cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes until almost done
3.  Spread garlic on crust then drizzle on barbecue sauce. Place the flatbread back in the oven until the barbecue sauce gets slightly caramelized (2-3 minutes)
4.  Add mushrooms and onions and sprinkle cheese on top.
5.  Place back in the oven until cheese melts

Sautéed Mushrooms

Ingredients
1 lb mushrooms, whole
.5 cup vegetable broth
1 T minced garlic

Directions
1.  Heat a skillet on med-high and spray with pan spray
2.  Add mushrooms, cover and sauté until they release their juices about 5-6 minutes
3.  Remove top,  add broth and garlic. Boil until almost dry.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients

1 lb mushrooms

1 medium onion, diced

.5 c fat free ricotta

.5 c breadcrumbs made from reduced calorie bread

2 t parsley

4 oz vegan sausage

.5 c fat free mozzarella

Directions

1. Take stems off mushrooms, diced and saute with onions.
2. In food processor blend ricotta, half the breadcrumbs, half the mozzarella, the parsley and the sausage
3. Preheat oven to 425.
4. Mix mushroom stem mixture into ricotta mixture
5. Place a spoonful of ricotta mixture into mushroom caps.
6. Sprinkle mushrooms with remaining cheese and breadcrumbs
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

I think next year my Super Bowl dinner will be at regional menu.  Either famous dishes from each of the teams cities or what the state/area is known for.  Mario Batali always does an interesting menu every year.  Check it out on his blog

I'm BACK!

My crazy weeks are done and I can focus again on y'all!  Honestly, nothing exciting has happened over the past few weeks.  This post might be a bit long due to the fact that I have a ton of recipes to share. 

Let's start with the Superbowl.  I never have enough friends to have a party but I love the idea of Superbowl party food.  So, I did a themed dinner that night.  It was delicious.  I did Spinach artichoke dip, homemade tortilla chips, cauliflower buffalo bites, and portabello pizzas.  The recipes for the dip and the buffalo bites are located below the picture. 

SkinnyTaste: Buffalo Cauliflower
SkinnyTaste: Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Oh and I did some angel food cake cupcakes with team colored sugar on top.

Next up, the Korean New Year, Seollal.  I made Bibimbap and chamchi-jeon (Korean tuna cakes)  except I did them with crab because I was in a crabby mood.  I didn't get a picture of any of it.  It was actually gone too quick. 

ZenKimchi Chamchi-Jeon

Oh and I just have to show you this!  My father and mother in law sent this to Sunny last week. 

 
Her own hanbok!  Isn't she simply adorable???  

Fast forward a few days to Valentine's Day.  To Ken and I this day has become just a day for the kids.  And it's honestly all about the candy.  We exchange cards and he will buy my flowers but, it's nothing major.  This year I gave him a bag of Snickers with a reason why I love him for every piece in it.  He gave me a bag of Valentine's Day 3 Musketeers.  I think I've talked about 3 Musketeers before.  Each piece has under 1 gram of fat so, I can still have chocolate without causing myself pain. This year he bought me a bag of Strawberry Dark Chocolate ones.  They are amazing.  I have dubbed them the "poor man's Russel Stover" because they taste so close to the high end strawberry cream chocolates.   I eat one a night.  I would highly recommend them.  7 pieces has 6 grams of fat and 180 calories.  That means 1 has 0.86 grams of fat and 25.8 calories.  Not too bad right?  Healthiest candy I've found so far.

Florida kills me sometimes.  The other morning I woke up and it was 34 degrees outside.  34!!  I decided it was the type of day that called for chili.  Well, by 2 pm it was around 65 degrees.  Definitely not typical chili weather.  But, despite that, I still made it.  I was amazed at how it turned out.  It was really good awesome!  I took a few big risks with some of the ingredients.  Kaylee and Mantha aren't normally fond of sweet potatoes (that's why there's only 1/2 of one in the recipe).  If I had been making it for me I would have added a whole one.  The soy crumbles aren't normally liked by non-vegetarians.  But, even Ken raved about it.  Note about the Crumbles.  If you are seriously on a no-fat diet then you need to buy the BOCA soy crumbles.  They are the only ones that have 0g of fat.  I picked up a different brand and didn't pay attention so that is why there is extra fat in the recipe 

Veggie Overload Chili
Serves 10 calories 136 fat 1.09 grams fiber 6 grams protein 12.2 grams

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup chili powder
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
2 bay leaves
12 oz Ground Crumbles Meatless (1 bag)
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
12 oz dark beer
.25 sweet potato, cubed
1 cup corn (fresh, frozen or canned)
16 oz mushrooms, quartered
42 oz Diced Tomatoes 
16 oz tomato sauce 

Directions

1. Saute onions, sweet potato and garlic until golden.
2. Add in the spices and cook for another 2 minutes
3. Stir in tomato paste and meatless crumbles
4. Next put in chocolate, beer,tomato sauce and tomatoes bring to a boil then reduced and simmer for 30 minutes
5. After 30 minutes add the corn, and mushrooms.
6.  Bring back to a boil and simmer for another 15 minutes

 I have a post in the works about regaining motivation.  I kist my motivation a few weeks ago while I wasn't blogging (hmmmm, I wonder if there's a connection?  I hadn't thought of it before now)  I bought myself a new pair of pants for the gym in order to get myself pumped.  

I bought them at Target for $20.  They are made by Champion and they are AH-MA-ZING.  When I worked out in my other capris I kept having to adjust them every 10 minutes.  The only time I had to adjust these was when I got out of the car and when I accidentally pushed them up.  I have one problem with them though.  They are made of 84% polyester and 16% spandex.  I'm very paranoid about them getting snagged.  

That's my February in a very big nutshell.  How has your month been?