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Guest Post – (Almost) Raw Stuffed Mushrooms with Cilantro Pesto and Sundried Tomato Spread

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There are few things I enjoy more than sharing good food with friends.  Give me a bottle of wine and a story to tell, and there might be nothing I love more. When Maggie invited me to write a guest post after our Wine and Mushroom night, I immediately said yes. My eagerness may have been due in part to the wine buzz, but I was genuinely excited for the opportunity to do so many things I love at once.

Cooking is one of my favorite ways to create and feel inspired. I love to experiment with ingredients and flavor combinations. Recipes are just a suggestion, for inspiration only, so I prefer dishes that lend themselves well to experimentation.  Stuffed mushrooms were the perfect choice for our evening: they’re such a forgiving dish. As long as the mushrooms are cooked properly (which is just a matter of setting the right temperature), there’s not much you can do to mess them up. Even if you’ve had a few glasses of wine.

After moving to Korea, I developed some food sensitivities and I now eat a primarily plant-based diet. It’s been difficult, but also quite fun as I’ve had to experiment and push boundaries even more. One of my favorite food blogs is This Rawsome Vegan Life, and I used this raw lasagna recipe as the inspiration for my mushroom creation. The recipe pairs a cilantro pesto with sun-dried tomato spread on zucchini “noodles,” topped with marinated mushrooms. Because the mushrooms clicked surprisingly well with the herbs, I thought they might work well together in a different context. Thus was born my idea for (partially) raw vegan stuffed mushrooms.

As I watched Maggie piecing together her caprese-inspired experiment, I knew it would turn out well. I was hungry just looking at it.  Blending my raw cashews and raw cilantro and raw everything, I hoped that my own cold/raw and hot/roasted combo would be a success. I cooked my mushrooms first, then stuffed them. Unlike most methods, I didn’t cook them again. I filled the cooked mushrooms with pesto and tomato spread, topped them with cashew cream sauce and fresh raw cilantro, then served them. I made some changes to my initial recipe, based on what I had on hand and my own intuition. I blended the pesto a bit too much for this batch, and the consistency resembled more of a sauce than a pesto, but that didn’t affect the flavor. In the end, it turned out to be a hit. Maggie and I both loved these mushrooms, so much so that we devoured the remaining pesto and tomato spread on Ryvita (highly recommended!)

 

Photo credit: ©Spoon in a Saucepan

Photo credit: ©Spoon in a Saucepan

 

(ALMOST) RAW STUFFED MUSHROOMS WITH CILANTRO PESTO AND SUNDRIED TOMATO SPREAD

Serves 5-10

Ingredients:

  • Blender or food processor

Mushrooms

  • 20 mushrooms, stems removed
  • ¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped, set aside
  • 1 tbsp olive oil

Cilantro-Walnut Pesto

  • 2 cups fresh cilantro (see note below)*
  • ¼ cup raw walnuts
  • ¼ cup raw pumpkin seeds
  • Juice from 1 lemon
  • 1 peeled garlic clove
  • Sea salt, to taste
  • Water, as needed

Sundried Tomato Spread

  • ½ cup raw cashews (chickpeas also work well)
  • 1 tablespoon tahini (can be replaced with 2 tsps hummus, or left out if you don’t have it)
  • Juice from 1 lemon
  • 1 garlic clove
  • ⅓ cup sun-dried tomatoes (or dehydrated tomatoes)
  • Sea salt, to taste
  • Water, as needed

Cashew Cream Sauce

  • ½ cup raw cashews
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (or to taste)
  • sea salt, to taste
  • water, as needed

Method

  1. Heat oven to 150° C
  2. Wipe mushrooms clean with a damp cloth.
  3. Place in a single layer on a roasting pan, cap down.
  4. Brush with olive oil.
  5. Bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, make:

  1. Cilantro pesto: blend all the ingredients in your blender/processor until it becomes a pesto-like consistency, adding water or other liquid as needed. Put in a bowl and set aside.
  2. Tomato spread: blend all the ingredients in your blender /processor until smooth (tomatoes should be in small pieces and starting to turn the mixture a reddish color), adding water or other liquid as needed. Put in a bowl and set aside.
  3. Cashew cream: blend all ingredients until smooth.
  4. Remove mushrooms from oven and let cool slightly.
  5. Layer a spoonful each of pesto and tomato spread in each mushroom.
  6. Drizzle cashew cream on top (I used a plastic bag with the corner cut off as a piping bag)
  7. Top it off with some chopped cilantro and enjoy!

*NOTE: I only used 1 cup of cilantro in the pesto, though the recipe calls for two. I started out wanting to make a half batch, changed my mind after adding the cilantro, and forgot to adjust accordingly. I’ve made the pesto previously with 2 cups, and its flavor is much bolder, which I prefer. I recommend using 2 cups. However, if you only moderately like cilantro, or you’re short on quantity, 1 cup still turned out well.

Tips

Leftovers: Remaining pesto is great with pasta or rolled up into zucchini slices. Extra tomato spread is excellent with pita or baguette.  Use both for dipping fresh veggies or on crackers.

Balsamic Roasted Caprese Stuffed Mushrooms.

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A number of rare or newly experienced foods have been claimed to be aphrodisiacs. At one time this quality was even ascribed to the tomato. Reflect on that when you are next preparing the family salad.

                                               – Jane Grigson

Firstly, sorry for the delay. Last week was a bit exhausting – on Monday after a delicious dinner of donkatsu at a local restaurant, some friends and I were hanging out in the park and I suddenly felt ill. Cue the next three days getting as much sleep after school as I could. I had a wee temperature the first few days along with a scratchy throat and general “weak” feeling. Then on Friday and Saturday our local education office whisked us off to Jeonju, a city famous for bibimbap, which is one of my all time favourite foods here in Korea. Actually, it’s up there as one of my favourite dishes ever. So, between getting tons of sleep and going off to Jeonju, this post was on hold. However, I think the delay will have been worth it, as I got to experiment a bit more with my balsamic roasted tomatoes.

As mentioned in a previous post, my friend Kate and I were supposed to have a Wine and Mushroom night a few weeks ago but we weren’t able to make it happen. Well, last Friday (as in two Fridays ago), we had it and it was a blast. A quick stop in the local Asia Mart where we piled up on fresh basil and cilantro/coriander for our mushroom fiesta. We then met at my house and cracked open a bottle of Casillero del Diablo.

Kate and wine

Kate and wine

Sated with wine, we proceeded to chop, slice, dice, blend and stuff delicious ingredients into mushrooms. Kate had decided on a vegan offering and my own contribution was caprese inspired. Both were amazing and we had so much fun preparing them and discussing all things food related from the benefits of vegan diets to the glories of balsamic vinegar. Amongst the many things we discussed was how crazy it was that Koreans use tomatoes in fruit salad. However, by the end of the evening, as we munched on the remaining balsamic laden tomatoes, we mused that we could understand why tomatoes are a fruit and used as such in Korea. Between the roasting and the balsamic vinegar those tomatoes, while delicious, were incredibly sweet.

All in all, the evening was a resounding success. Except, as we discovered, drunk man drunk girl can’t survive on stuffed mushrooms alone! Next time we will definitely need some pasta or potatoes to keep us going and to prevent us from getting buzzed on just a few glasses of wine. We may only have a few Fridays left together in Korea (Kate leaves in September) but I hope that we can use at least some of them for mushroom and wine filled adventures!

As Kate and I had so much fun making these mushrooms, I am excited to announce that Spoon in a Saucepan’s next post will be Kate’s recipe for her vegan stuffed mushrooms! Yes, we will be having our first guest writer! I am beyond excited! In the meantime, please check out her blog which is a journal of her life and thoughts here in Korea and as she travels elsewhere. While it’s not a cooking blog, Kate is a fantastic cook and she always inspires me to think outside the box.

Caprese Stuffed Mushrooms

Serves 5 -10

Ingredients

  • around 3 cups mixed red and yellow cherry/baby roma tomatoes, washed and dried
  • around 20 mushrooms, stems removed.
  • ¾ cup mozzarella cheese, finely diced
  • ¼ tsp dried basil
  • 2-3 bunches fresh basil
  • 1½ tbsp olive oil, separated
  • balsamic vinegar, for drizzling
  • olive oil, for drizzling

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
  2. Remove the stems from the tomatoes and place them in a single layer in a roasting pan.
  3. Toss with 1 tbsp olive oil and the dried basil, and then drizzle balsamic vinegar over them.
  4. Place in the oven for between 40-50 minutes.  Turn them once or twice.* You want the tomatoes to shrink a bit and to be nicely browned**.
  5. Meanwhile, dampen some paper towels and wipe each mushroom cap. Then using  brush each cap with the remaining ½ tbsp of oil and then place on parchment paper on a baking sheet.
  6. Toss the mozzarella with fresh basil and set aside.
  7. Once the tomatoes are cooked, remove from the oven. Set aside and let them cool slightly.
  8. Put some of the mozzarella basil mixture in the bottom of each mushroom.
  9. Top with one or two tomatoes depending on the size of the mushroom.
  10. Top with some more of the mozzarella and add fresh basil to the top.
  11. Repeat until all the mushrooms are filled.
  12. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
  13. Place in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the cheese has melted.
  14. Top with some more basil, and enjoy!

*In my toaster oven I put it on for 25 minutes, turning once. Then I put it on for another 20 minutes and turn once or twice. You shouldn’t need to do this in a regular oven and around 40-50 minutes should be perfect.

*I think that somewhere between 40 and 47 minutes is the perfect amount of time – they brown nicely, but don’t let them get too blackened. Some tomatoes will blacken. Don’t discard them, they are still delicious, especially once they cool.

TIPS

Make it your own: If you don’t like basil, substitute coriander or parsley.

Leftovers:  If you have any of the balsamic roasted tomatoes leftover use them in salads or wraps. Also, the dregs of oil and balsamic vinegar left in the roasting pan are nice to mop up with some baguette.

Nepalese Spiced Tea (Chiah)

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Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

                                                                                                             – Sydney Smith

I love tea. I drink at least 2 mug-fulls (500ml each) every day. I normally drink Barry’s or Lyons tea which are Irish brands of tea. I grew up drinking them from a young age at my Granny O’s house. Originally, I drank my tea with lots of milk and loaded with sugar. However, this ended when my Mam discovered how much sugar we drank in our tea, and she cut us off from it then and there! To this day, I don’t take sugar in my tea unless I have a really bad headache, and even then it tastes odd to me.

For years, I rarely wavered from these two brands and scoffed at herbal teas. Then, one day I had a really bad stomach ache and the headmistress at my school plied me with peppermint tea. To my absolute shock, I loved peppermint tea. I liked the taste and how “calm” I felt afterwards. Beyond peppermint tea, though, I didn’t branch-out for many years. Nowadays, I love all kinds of tea. Except Green tea. I can drink it, but I don’t love it. And (gasp!) I hate green tea ice-cream. I keep trying a little bit ever so often in hope that one day my taste buds will change but I’ve yet to embrace it!

Due to this huge love of tea, and because I own so many different teas (including three different brands of Earl Grey) I’ve started hosting tea nights in my little apartment. I’ve had as many as around 10-12 people and as few as one (besides myself) attend. No matter the size of the group, I’ve always had a blast and I love sharing tea with my friends. I especially love it when they drink some Irish tea!

Recently, while perusing my favourite cookbook (Extending the Table of course!) I finally turned to look at the beverages. For some reason, I’ve always skipped over that section and rushed through to the main and side dishes. I noticed that they had several recipes for tea and I decided to check out my cupboards to see which one I could make for an upcoming tea night. I asked one of my favourite tea drinkers to join me on Thursday last week when I taste-tested the below recipe for the first time.

We were struck by a disaster from the minute she entered the apartment. Whilst waiting for her arrival, I was steeping the tea, and when she arrived, I started pulling down the spices to add to the tea: Cinnamon, Cloves, …. I then received a check to my foraging as, to my horror, I was out of cardamom. In fact, as my shelves ruefully informed me, I haven’t had any cardamom in my cupboards since moving to Korea. I don’t know how it is that I’ve made this oversight—all I can think is that all the other spices starting with “c” must have confused me!

Thankfully, Liz was able to save the day as she had some, and we were able to have our tea. It reminds me of the Chai Lattes in Starbucks, Butlers or Ediya. However, the taste is different and I found it a little “bitter” in comparison to the coffee shop Chai Lattes. However, we both really liked it and I made it again on Wednesday to have after dinner this time using coconut milk. I will make it again on Sunday for my tea party. You will find the recipe below. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Nepalese Spiced Tea (Chiah)

Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp black tea leaves*
  • 5 cups of boiling water
  • 1¼ cups of milk
  • ⅓ cup sugar**
  • 4 whole cloves
  • 3 cardamom pods, cracked open
  • 1 cinnamon stick

Method

  1. Steep the tea leaves in the boiling water.
  2. Meanwhile, heat the milk until it is simmering.
  3. Once heated, add the sugar, spices and milk to the steeping tea. Stir between each group of ingredients.
  4. Simmer for 10 or so minutes to blend the flavours.
  5. Strain and serve hot.

*I use Assam tea leaves but you can use any black tea. You can also use 3 tea bags instead of tea leaves.

**The original recipe says ⅓ to ⅔ cups of sugar. I prefer my tea a little less sweet but you can add more sugar if you desire.

Tips

Make it your own: Don’t like milk? Lactose intolerant? Well, as mentioned, I used coconut milk the second time I made it but you could use soy or almond milk instead.  I don’t like the texture or taste of soy milk so I usually avoid it. Also, if using coconut milk, you might notice after a while it separates, but just stir it together again. You could also drink it over ice once it cools down as a summer beverage on a hot, humid day.

 For breakfast: Add to some chia seeds and make a Chiah Chia pudding (try saying that really fast!).

 

Kale and Rasher Stuffed Mushrooms

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You can’t just eat good food. You’ve got to talk about it too. And you’ve got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.

– Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird

A couple of weeks ago, there was a three-day weekend starting on the Friday. As a result, I invited some of my teacher school-friends to come for dinner on Thursday—no school the next day meant I could be lazy with the clean up! I decided to introduce them to some Irish food, and some Irish inspired food.

For starters, I had a cheese board with Edam, Smoked cheese and Brie (I know, I know none of those cheeses are Irish but we DO love cheese!).  I made that quintessentially Irish dish, Shepherd’s pie, using beef as the main ingredient and I chose to serve some side dishes using traditional ingredients of rasher, kale, cabbage, celery, onion and leek. I made my Kale Baked Beans and Stuffed Mushrooms. Everything was a hit with my friends, but the Stuffed Mushrooms stood out as a clear favourite!

Mushrooms are one of those foods that people seem to either love or hate. As I’ve mentioned before I have sisters who don’t like mushrooms. Sharing images or recipes with them of mushrooms is futile (although I do keep trying in hopes that someday they will succumb to the deliciousness!). So, when I made this recipe, instead of running to my sisters, I told my friend Kate about them. We spent ages, at the time and since, talking about different types of stuffed mushrooms. We even planned a wine and stuffed mushroom making night. Unfortunately, the night in question, she hurt her foot so we had to postpone our cooking adventure for the time being. However, I went ahead and re-made the below recipe and shared them with her. Both she and her boyfriend really enjoyed them.

I would suggest using this as a starter or as a side dish at a potluck. They would work well for an Irish themed meal or with the Roasted Pork Chops and Sweet Potatoes.

Kale and Rasher Stuffed Mushrooms

Serves 5 – 10*

Ingredients

  • Around 20 button mushrooms, stems discarded.
  • 1 cup finely diced kale
  • 1 tbsp olive oil.
  • 1 cup finely diced white cabbage
  • 1 leek, finely sliced into rings
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 1 stick celery finely diced** (optional)
  • sea salt
  • black pepper
  • 5-6 rashers/slices of bacon, chopped***
  • Olive oil for the mushrooms (optional)

Method

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 200°C.
  2. Bring a pot of water to the boil and then add the kale.
  3. Bring back to the boil and then reduce and simmer for around 10 minutes. Drain, squeeze out any excess water and set aside until step 6.
  4. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a saucepan or frying pan on medium heat.
  5. Add the remaining vegetables minus the mushrooms with plenty of black pepper and some sea salt to the saucepan and saute gently.
  6. Once the vegetables are soft and the onions are starting to get translucent, add the kale. You could also add some more pepper at this stage.
  7. Continue to saute for a further 2-3 minutes until everything is heated through and soft. Do not let anything brown.
  8. Remove from heat and set aside.
  9. Heat a separate frying pan and, once hot, add the rashers. Cook for a few minutes until almost brown and there is plenty of oil in the pan.
  10. Add the vegetable mix and cook thoroughly until the meat is completely cooked and the vegetables are gently browned.
  11. Meanwhile, wipe each mushroom with a damp paper towel and place on a baking dish covered with parchment paper. If you want to, at this point, you can coat the outer mushroom with olive oil, but it’s not necessary.
  12. Heap the filling into each mushroom and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Don’t burn the rashers/bacon!
  13. Remove and serve immediately.

*If using as a starter, I’d use the amount in this recipe for a maximum of ten people, which would mean two mushrooms each.

**The celery is really nice in these mushrooms, however the second time I made them, I left it out.

***For Irish/British readers use streaky rashers.

You can cook all the vegetables up the night before. The first time I made these that’s what I did.

TIPS

Make it your own: Substitute some shredded carrot, or finely diced broccoli for the cabbage and celery. Or add these vegetables to the mixture.

For lunch or breakfast:  If you have any of the filling leftover, make with scrambled eggs and put it in a wrap.

Vegetable Fried Quinoa

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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

– J.R.R. Tolkien.

I recently bought a bag of quinoa. While, I have eaten it before, until last week, I’d yet to actually cook this fantastic little grain. I was trying to figure out what to make with it when I was flipping through Extending the Table and came across one of my favourite recipes from that cookbook called Vietnamese Fried Rice. A quick skim over the contents, a look around my kitchen and I came up with the below recipe.

I liked the recipe so much that I made it again this week for my lunches.

While this recipe does borrow heavily from the original recipe (coming soon), substituting quinoa for rice was not the only change that I made. I hope you like this recipe and that you find it an easy one to make when you are craving something a little different.

Vegetable Fried Quinoa

serves 2-3

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa,*
  • 1 dried chili
  • 1-2 bay leaves
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled
  • 3 tbsp sunflower/grapeseed oil
  • 3 cloves garlic sliced
  • 1 large red onion, chopped
  • 1 carrot, shredded
  • 1 cup shredded white cabbage
  • 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tbsp fish sauce*
  • 1/2 cup leftover green peas, cooked.
  • 1 egg, beaten

Method

  1. Cook quinoa as per package directions with the chili, bay leaf and peeled garlic.
  2. Remove the seasonings from the quinoa  and discard.
  3. Set the quinoa aside.
  4. Heat a frying pan on high heat. Once hot, add oil and heat for a further 15-20 seconds.
  5. Add garlic, onion, carrot, cabbage, black pepper, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and fish sauce.
  6. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes.
  7. Stir in the cooked quinoa and stir fry for a further 5 minutes.
  8. Then add the peas and cook for a further 30 seconds to 1 minute.
  9. Reduce to a medium heat and add the egg, stirring constantly until it is cooked through.
  10. Serve immediately.

*You can make the quinoa up the night before, or use leftover quinoa from a different recipe. I cooked a batch up on Sunday night, and made this recipe on Tuesday night.

**For a vegetarian recipe, leave out the fish sauce. You could substitute some Worcester sauce or add an extra ½ tbsp of sesame oil, if you’d like.

 Tips

Make it for a larger crowd: Double the amount of quinoa as well as the seasonings (black pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar and fish sauce) and add a second egg. The amount of vegetables can stay the same.

Make it your own: Substitute any leftover vegetables like peppers, courgette or cucumber for the carrot and cabbage. You could substitute spinach for the peas. To thicken it up, you could add a second egg (this makes it more gooey and the seasoning more subtle).