mushrooms 4ever
Mushrooms. I'm sure they polarize entire populations. Love them? Hate them? Feel indifferent? Just kidding. Nobody feels indifferent. When it comes to these freaky little fungi, love and hate rule the conversation.
I grew up spending summers with my veggie-obsessed Gram in California. Thank goodness, because she exposed me to all kinds of produce I would never have had access to in West Texas. My September-June experience was purely Friday Night Lights and Big Macs with a side of Tex-Mex. My Gram's summertime table was full of fat-free diet food and all the veggies a body could handle. She would grill anything that grew in the ground and doused all of her raw vegetables in rice wine vinegar and olive oil.
We constantly butted heads about candy, boyfriends (hers, not mine), bikinis (again, hers), and what was appropriate behavior for an adolescent teen and 70-something grandmother. She typically won, and I'm glad. She pushed me out of my limited mindsets and pushed me to be more interested, and, if I'm honest, interesting.
The first time I ate a mushroom at Gram's summertime table (with me sporting a full coverage one piece and neon shorts, and her in a ruffled pink bikini), it was raw. All I tasted was dirt. I swore off them forever. So, she made them for dinner.
She pulled out three portobello mushrooms from the refrigerator. I still tasted the dirty fungus from lunch in my mouth and I gave her a hard eye roll. She doused them in rice wine vinegar, olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar. Then she set them aside and let them marinate for an hour before plopping them on the grill.
I'll have you know, I ate one bite and gagged dramatically. It wasn't that bad, but I was a teenage jerk and wanted to make her feel bad. But I kept eating, suffering all over my face, but silently believing it wasn't bad. In fact, it was GOOD. Really good, in fact, and I requested them the next summer.
I still love vegetables, including mushrooms. I eat them on the regular now, and always think of my completely brazen, unfiltered, firecracker grandmother. I know she liked fancy things and I love honoring her life in small ways. Stuffing veggies into other veggies seems like a good way to do that.
Ingredients:
4-10 portobello mushroom caps with stems removed
1 large spaghetti squash, or 2 petite ones
1 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese (optional)
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary
Garlic powder
Rice wine vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
S&P
Directions:
Cut the stem end off of the spaghetti squash, and slice in half lengthwise. Scrape out seeds and strings with a spoon. Coat both sides with olive oil and place face down on baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 40ish minutes.
Drizzle vinegars and olive oil on the tops of the mushrooms, and sprinkle some garlic powder, sales and pepper. Flip mushrooms over and repeat. Cover and set aside for one hour.
When spaghetti squash is tender and very soft, remove from oven. Allow to cool slightly before scraping the insides off the skin into a large mixing bowl. It will look like noodles, although they will not taste like noodles even a little, so don't kid yourself. It's a vegetable, not magic. Mix 3/4 cup Parmesan, chopped rosemary, and a little salt and garlic powder into to squash.
Now this is a fun thing: you can pre-grill your mushroom caps for 7 minutes first, or just stuff them and put them in the oven. Your choice.
Stuff mushroom caps with squash, top with the remaining cheese, and pop in the oven for 20-27 minutes, depending on how much your mushroom caps need to soften.
Serve immediately and enjoy around your summer table. Or maybe give them to your grandmother and make her smile. Or gag. Her choice.
