All Veggie Dinner

Last week, I decided to serve an all vegetable dinner - I was simply tired of carbs like rice and roti at every meal and needed a break. Luckily we had fabulous organic vegetables from the weekly farmer's market. Though there was dal and rice in case anyone was still hungry, it went untouched!

I'm not a big mushroom fan, I don't like their texture and watery taste. But one of the very few mushroom dishes I like is stuffed mushroom caps. It works best with large sized button mushrooms and is super easy to prepare. Plus well roasted, it avoids that watery taste that I abhor.

Leeks are a winter favourite and I always buy heaps. I love them simply roasted and slightly burnt at the ends, hot out of the oven, with nothing but a tiny pinch of salt. But for a more filling dish, a cheese, cream and leek bake hits the spot and tastes delicious to boot.

The salad portion was a simple Insalata Caprese, with cherry tomatoes. I think it could have used a touch of garlic or pesto and shall experiment with that next time.

Stuffed Mushrooms:

Ingredients
10 large button mushrooms
1 onion, chopped very fine
Handful of parsley leaves, chopped fine
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 slices of bread, turned into crumbs
2 glugs of oil

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C.

Remove the stems of the mushrooms and chop the stems very fine. Pour 1 glug of oil into a pan and heat. Toss in the garlic and onions and cook until soft. Add the mushroom pieces and cook. Mix the parsley and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix with the bread crumbs.

Coat the top of the mushroom cap with what's left of the oil and place onto the roasting tray. Fill the hollow on the upper side ( from where you took out the stems) with the mixture of breadcrumbs, mushroom stems etc.

Roast for 25 minutes. Serve hot - serves 5.

Baked Leeks:

Ingredients:
5 leeks - fat ones! Chop off the extreme end of the leafy side and then split vertically down the middle, after washing them thoroughly
200 grams cream
100 grams cheddar cheese, grated
2 slices of bread, crumbed

Heat oven to 150 degrees C.

Heat salted water to a boil. Toss in the leeks and cook for about 5-7 minutes until just soft. Remove and drain. Layer the leeks in a shallow, lightly greased baking pan. Mix the cream and cheese and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the leeks. Cover with breadcrumbs. Bake for 35 minutes or till brown on top. Serves 5

Insalata caprese:

Ingredients:
Cherry mozzarella - 10 small balls
Firm, ripe tomatoes  - 5, sliced
Handful of basil leaves, chiffonaded
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Arrange the cherry mozzarella on a plate. Sandwich between slices of tomatoes. Top with the basil leaves. pour over the olive oil, add salt and pepper. Leave for a couple of hours for the flavours to develop. Serve at room temperature. serves 5. You can add sliced olives, or dress with pesto sauce instead of plain olive oil, add a touch of garlic to the oil for a fancier touch.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Here's my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Anna this week.

I have a somewhat love-hate relationship with mushrooms. Perhaps because as per the classifications of taste, they are supposed to taste similar to meat, and as a vegetarian, I find their meatiness a bit hard to swallow, literally. However, there are some mushroom-based recipes that I quite like, as long as I don't have them too often. Mushroom curry, a somewhat dry vegetable made in a typical Indian style, with onions, tomatoes and green bell peppers in a cumin-coriander powder sauce is one of them. Another is my mother's famous mushroom soup, which uses liberal quantities of green chillies and very finely minced mushrooms in a broth reminiscent of white sauce, only more watery. Another that I've always enjoyed at restaurants is grilled and stuffed mushrooms. So when we wound up with a basket of large mushrooms at home, I decided to give that a whirl.

I sliced off the stems of the mushrooms and chopped them up very finely. I then mixed this with breadcrumbs, minced coriander leaves, finely chopped green chillies, some cheese ( mozzarella and cheddar mixed), some minced onion and garlic and grilled them, brushed with butter, in a hot oven for about 15 minutes, until they were browning, and served it hot with a dash of lime juice. And voila, a favourite appetizer was born!

Pasta treat

The Royal Foodie Joust theme last month is to make a dish combining mushrooms, cheese and herbs. I read the theme too late to enter but the ingredients still got me started on thinking how to use them, and what I would make. The only mushrooms you get fresh here are good old button mushrooms - not that exciting, huh? I debated between various alternatives, including a soup, a simple mushroom au gratin type of thing or even stuffed mushroom caps. For some reason, I was determined to make something using blue cheese, which restricted the options a little bit.

My cousin and his wife were coming over on the first day of the Deepavali weekend, for lunch. This was the first time they were visiting us, so I wanted to make something special for lunch but not anything so elaborate that I would be in the kitchen the whole time. I also knew that they would have a heavy weekend ahead in terms of food so initially I was a bit stumped. Then it occurred to me, partly because I had been trying to come up with a recipe for the Royal Foodie Joust, that I could make a pasta. The sauce could easily be whipped up ahead of time, and the pasta itself would take a few minutes to cook. Accompanied by a hearty salad, some garlic bread and a ginger-cinnamon cake for dessert, it would be perfect.

The sauce was a dressed up version of Alfredo sauce, with heavy cream, Danish Blue cheese, basil and marjoram, button mushrooms and peas, with a few green chillies to add interest. The sweet young peas were bursting with flavour, a good contrast to the sharp tang of the blue cheese, and the green chillies added bite to an otherwise bland sauce. The herbs added layers to the flavour of this sauce, making it an even more complex and subtle tasting one. It was easy enough to make, and worked very well for our lunch guests, so I know I'll be making that again!

Ingredients:
100 gms Danish Blue cheese
1 cup heavy cream
1 small box button mushrooms, chopped fine
1 large red onion, chopped fine
1 cup green peas, lightly boiled in salted water
2-3 green chillies
Handful basil leaves, torn roughly
1 tsp dried Marjoram
Salt and pepper to taste

Pour a small glug of good olive oil into a saucepan.
Put in the basil and marjoram when the oil is hot, and then add the onion.
Cook until soft and translucent and add the green chillies and mushrooms.
Cook for a few minutes until the mushrooms turn soft.
Turn the heat down very low and add the blue cheese.
Wait until the cheese is almost completely melted and add the cream.
Whisk the sauce together until well mixed.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour on top of a pasta of your choice. I would have preferred fettucine for this sauce but we had run out so I used wholewheat Penne rigate which also worked well. This makes enough sauce for 6 people.