Getting Stuffed with a Twist on Lidia's Stuffed Mushrooms

Tonight, I'm having leftover penne a la vodka, but because there isn't enough for a dinner serving three, to spice it up, I decided to make another dish to go along with the heavenly pasta. While perusing Costco yesterday for frozen berries and bananas for my morning smoothies, I saw a good deal on baby bell mushrooms--$3.99 for a whole container full. I grabbed the first one and put them into the cart with stuffed mushrooms on my brain. Only several aisles up, I realized that my mushrooms were full of a white-fuzzy mold. I'd say thats a few "ahhs" short of delicious. So back to the refrigerator aisle I went to get the perfect container of mushrooms. After Costco, I went to my local food store and picked up a red pepper because I knew the rest of the ingredients I had at home.

When it came time to cook the mushrooms, I used the stuffed mushroom recipe my mom uses when she makes the yummy appetizers from Lidia cookbook, Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich (2001) on pages 18 and 19. You can also get the recipe from Lidia's Italy's web site, Stuffed Mushrooms. However, I never use a recipe as is, I like to make it my own--and that's the fun of cooking (not baking, trust me on that one).

The first thing I did when I was ready to cook was pop open the mushroom container, then using three or four damp papertowels, cleaned the dirt off the tops and stems of about 24 mushrooms. This took about fifteen minutes because I also pulled out the stems of the mushrooms and placed them on a cutting board while the clean mushroom tops went onto a foiled and sprayed baking sheet. (I cook mine differently than Lidia, who suggests pouring a mixture of chicken broth and white wine into a baking pan and then placing the mushrooms in the liquid in the pan.)

Once the mushrooms were lined up on the foil, I began to make the stuffing! I finely chopped up the mushroom stems, one red onion (instead of Lidia's suggested 1/2 cup of shallots), one red pepper, and then I decided to add some chopped fresh spinach leaves into the mixture. I placed the vegetables into a skillet that was on medium heat with olive oil. Once the onion and veggies were browned, I stirred in some fresh ground pepper, a dash of parsley, a 1/2 cup of panco (Japanese bread crumbs) and a 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

When all the ingredients were well blended, I stuffed the mushrooms on the pan and placed them into a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes. Lidia wrote 425 (which was way too hot) for 20 minutes in her recipe. When the timer went off, I took the tray out of the oven, let the mushrooms cool and plated three mushrooms on each plate of penne. I also ate a few while waiting for dinner.

Overall, I give these stuffed mushrooms an 'A' because they were very easy to make. They could also be even easier if you put all the ingredients into a food processor as that would save time chopping the vegetables. The downside of this recipe was taking the time to clean the mushrooms. It was so much work! But, I'll be making these again to bring to Easter dinner along with some red velvet cupcakes!