Stuffed Mushrooms

This was a historic recipe growing up at my house, with the base recipe surpassing 1977! How retro!



12 large mushrooms
2 Tbsp margarine
1 medium onion, finely chopped
¼ C green peppers
½ C vegetarian pepperoni, diced (opt)
1 clove garlic, minced
½ C crushed round crackers (appx 15 crackers)
3 tbsp nutritional yeast (opt)
1 Tbsp parsley
1 Tbsp oregano
1/3 C vegetable (or no-chicken) broth
Salt to taste

325 degrees

1. Remove stems. Chop and set aside.

2. Clean the rest of the mushroom and drain caps on a towel.

3. Melt margarine in skillet. Add onion, pepper, pepperoni, garlic, and mushroom stems. I used soy chorizo.

4. Cook until tender, but not brown.

5. Add crackers, nutritional yeast, parsley, and oregano. Mix well.

6. Stir in broth. Add salt to taste.


With broth

7. When stuffing all sticks together, it is done. You may need to add more crackers for it to thicken up.


Ready for stuffing!

8. Spoon stuffing into the caps.



9. Place caps in a shallow baking pan with ¼” of water covering the bottom.


I used leftover vegetable broth

10. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes at 325 degrees.



I added a little vegan cheese for fun. Enjoy!

Poppers!

Well Vegan: Over 90 Mouthwatering Recipes for All Occasions calls it Crispy, stuffed peppaew peppers .

I don't know what a peppadew is, and the grocery store certainly didn't have any. They are smaller and the recipe calls for 8. I used a variety of larger peppers that included jalapeño, poblano and a mild banana pepper.

You can also easily play with the filling ingredients.

If you do not have plain yogurt on hand, slowly add your milk so the batter isn't runny (like mine was!).


Prep: 15 min
Cooking: 20 min
serves: 2

8 tsp vegan cream cheese
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 Tbsp parsley, chopped
8 peppadew peppers, tops removed and seeded
1/2 C strong white flour
1/2 C (125 ml) rice or soy milk
1 Tbsp vegan yogurt
1 tsp arrowroot
1 tsp vegan bouillon powder
1 tsp finely grated lime rind
1 Tbsp coconut oil
sesame seeds for sprinkling

1.Oil a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 350F (180C)

2. Place cream cheese, garlic an parsley in a bowl and mix together thoroughly. Put a teaspoonful of the cream cheese mixture into each pepper.

3. Place flour, milk, yogurt, arrowroot, bouillon powder and lime rind in a small bowl or jug and mix well to make a stiff batter.

4. Dip each stuffed pepper into the batter to coat the outside, then place on the prepared baking sheet.

5. Sprinkle the peppers with the oil and sesame seeds, then bake for about 7 minutes. Baste, then return to the oven for a further 7-10 minutes, until crisp.

Homemade Tofurky

Homemade Tofu Turkey is WAAAYY better than that other stuff.

Recipe

HINTS

Press the tofu first, and then FREEZE it. Then let it thaw out the day before you intend to bake it.
After repressing, stuffing and turning it out in a dish, go ahead and take a brush to baste it. Let is sit maybe 30 min marinading in that BEFORE cooking. (If you put it on while cooking, it just makes a salty skin and does not absorb into the tofu)
Cook at 350 not 400. Bake 1 hour covered. take the cover off and baste again
(keep cover off). 30 min later baste again (should be the last of the marinade). 30 min later you're done!
Let's eat!

For this Tofurky I only used 3 blocks of tofu, so adjust your cooking time and marinade as needed!

Baked Tomatoes

A co-worker generously gave me a bunch of tomatoes. I knew I couldn't finish them off before they went bad so I decided to try my hand a baked 'maters. I have no idea what they are supposed to taste like, but in a way that let's me play with it more.

First thing:
Cut the top off the tomatoes and hollow them out. sprinkle salt on the inside and turn upside down to drain. After an hour, pat the inside of the tomato with a paper towel. Now they are ready for stuffin'!

I sauteed some finely chopped veggies (onion, pepper, mushroom, carrot) and split them into 3 different piles.

Mix 1/3 with precooked rice (I use brown).
Mix 1/3 with cornmeal mixed with hot water (corn mush)
Mix 1/3 with panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

Stuff!

I covered them with foil and put in the toaster oven about 350F/175C for 15 minutes-ish. I took the foil off and continued cooking for about 5-10 min to get a crunchy top.



Left: Cornmeal
Right: Rice
Back: Panko

Verdict: I didn't like the rice one, very plain. The Cornmeal one was the best, very flavorful.. the panko followed with a very close second.

Stuffed Peppers

The most important thing in cooking, to me, is music. If you had a bad day, it will be reflected in your food. So throw some tunes it and get your booty wigglin’. Not only will it relieve stress, your food will also be happier!

And with bad days come comfort food. Today’s comfort food is Stuffed Peppers, lots of starchy, earthy ingredients.



What you need:
Peppers (any color will do, I got discount ones)
Rice (any type- cooked)
Onion- diced
Cabbage- chopped
Tomato soup/sauce/anything liquidy tomatoey
Spices
Tofu or veggie cheese (opt)
Baking dish of some sort

Chop the tops off the peppers and cut those innards out of ‘em. Set aside. Chop up as much onion and cabbage you like, I only used a little, since my peppers were so small. You’ll probably want your portion of cooked rice to be at least twice that of your cabbage and onions. Sprinkle with salt.




Mix. Stuff peppers with goodies, placing the extras around them in the dish. I added a little squished up tofu in place of cheese on the tops.



NOTE: you can mix your tomato stuff in with it (as seen in the picture), or pour it over top of everything if it’s real liquidy. Normally tomato soup is used, but I just used canned chunky tomatoes to which I added a splash of soymilk to make it creamy as well as garlic and oregano.

Place pepper tops on peppers, cover dish in foil, bake 40 min at 350F/175C or until peppers are tender.

Enjoy!


Things I would do differently: more spices and salt, and more tofu!! It was really good hot and squishy in there! Also, if you dont like your peppers a little crispy, you can boil them for 5 minutes to soften them up before stuffing and baking.