Stroganoff Struggles

A few months back I concocted a mushroom and chicken stroganoff after perusing a handful of recipes from epicurious.com. Though traditionally this dish includes beef and sour cream, my version had neither of these, but it was hands-down the best of its kind that I've ever tasted. And, since preparing and eating this dish drained me of all the weeknight energy, I never bothered to take notes or photos. With the passage of time, all memory of this event are gone...this was one of those dishes that I have repeatedly referenced in dinner-planning conversation since; "Remember that stroganoff I made? Man, that was good. I wish I'd written down a recipe."

I gave it another shot this week, but was sadly disappointed. Attempt #2 lacked the creaminess and the depth of flavor of the first one. I used onion, white button mushrooms, white wine, nutmeg, garlic, and dijon mustard. Next time I will not skimp in the cream department.
Stroganoff tips greatly appreciated!

Buttery Risotto with Portobello and Parmesan

In an effort to make some comfort food on Sunday night and also clean out the cabinets a bit, I found this recipe on Epicurious. I adapted it to use Arborio rice because I discovered that the barley I have in the cabinet is not pearl barley, and would likely have taken to my 30th birthday to cook.

While trying to discern if I had pearl barley or not, I learned more about barley than I suspect many health food store employees know. (That's not to disparage very knowledgeable and helpful health food store employees!) Now I am 75% sure that the Goya barley in my cabinet is hulled barley (aka barley groats), but of course the package only says "barley," hence my uncertainty. Hulled barley is more nutritious than pearl barley because it is less processed/refined (not sure of the correct term here); only its outermost hull has been polished off. However, pretty much the only use for hulled barley is in stews and soups. And I like stew...but Sunday I wanted to throw some grains, butter and cheese in a pot and call it dinner.

This was the first time I've ever scraped the gills out of a mushroom. My initial reaction was that this sounded really fussy, but I figured out pretty quickly that the gills would have discolored the risotto, probably making it an unappetizing gray color. Point taken.

I would use more portobello next time (this was about 6 oz). Since I cut the amount of grain ingredient in half, I sort of made a half recipe, but I kept the portobello at full force. There are just never enough mushrooms. I'm frequently disappointed by the shrinkage of mushrooms.

Portobello Mushrooms Stuffed with Spinach and Goat Cheese

I've made stuffed portobellos before but had never marinated the mushrooms first. This added a lot of flavor to the stuffing, which seemed sort of bland to me. I pretty much followed the recipe--minus Marsala and thyme sprigs. When confronted with the realization that I didn't have a garlic press, I minced the garlic instead. I did a quick web search to weigh my options, concluding that it wouldn't really make a big difference. Do you know what the flavor difference is between pressing and mincing garlic? An Alton Brown-esque answer would be appreciated.


Here's the 'shrooms' first soak. Loving both balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, I thought the smell of the marinade was wonderful. However, an innocent bystander described the aroma as "strong." Hmm, to each his own.









After a few hours of flipping back and forth in the marinade, they looked like this.





The filling was a bit bland for my taste. Ok, full disclosure, I under-salted...again. Since the final result wasn't so beautiful, I'll let you picture it yourself. Hopefully your mental picture will look better than the photo I took which resembled something more like a pile of white, brown, and green mush. Think: mushroom, balsamic, chèvre, spinach...do you have a lovely picture in your mind now? Good, now maybe you could make this recipe look better. I've never been one for presentation!

Dinner in the Mountains

While I can't take the credit for finding this awesome Lion's Mane mushroom, I did help make it into some delicious mushroom cakes. The cakes were made with an egg, vegenaise (we just didn't have mayo), bread crumbs, dijon mustard, tamari, and fresh chives and thyme.


Here are the ingredients before the "wilted" mushrooms were added. They had the consistency and taste of really good crab cakes. Of course it helped that they were fried to perfection by my sister (who also gets credit for finding the 'shroom at our parents' farmers' market). We gobbled up the crab cakes...along with some jalapeno elk bratwursts, corn and swiss chard. It's pretty cool to be vacationing in a foodshed that includes elk meat!

Here was the beautiful setting for dinner: my family's deck, cool mountain air, and the gentle noise of the Roaring Fork River behind us.