Olive-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
These Olive-Stuffed Portobellos were the key dish in yesterday’s lunch. I found a recipe in (you guessed it) Kate Wood’s Eat Smart Eat Raw that I thought I could adapt to our particular needs (lower calorie, lower fat content, lower salt). This is what I made:
OLIVE-STUFFED PORTOBELLO MUSHROOMS
2 whole Portobello mushrooms, stems removed
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 medium stick celery, chopped
4 oz (in weight) pitted kalamata olives
3/4 oz (in weight) sundried tomatoes
3 Tbsp fresh basil leaves
3 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley leaves
3 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp flaxseed meal
1 Tbsp tahini
Put everything except the mushrooms in a food processor and puree. Place the mushrooms topside down and spread the mixture on the underside. Put in the dehydrator at 115 F for 4 hours.
We ate ours as soon as it was ready (I had prepared everything in the morning, so that it was ready to come out of the dehydrator by lunchtime), faintly warm and seeming for all the world like something cooked yet with better and fresher flavour than any cooked food ever has. We had a crisp green salad with these.
Earlier in the week, I had wanted something to go with the last of the falafel I had made earlier. (It made too much for us to have, so I froze around half of them – worked fine.)
Falafel
Here you see the falafel drizzled with a tiny bit of tahini and served with lemon wedges.
Tabouleh seemed like an obvious match for this dish, but of course there was what I perceived as the grain ‘problem’. Then I thought of quinoa. (If you don’t know this wonderful grain – a grass, really, but works just like a grain and stands in for all sorts of things like couscous, rice, etc., do seek it out – it’s pronounced keen-wah. In addition to being a near-perfect protein it has a delightful flavour, not too strong, which complements so many dishes and, wonder of wonders, it can be cooked in about 15 minutes. All hail quinoa! We love it!!)
But where was I? Oh yes . . .
I soaked some quinoa for a short while – around 3 hours then sprouted it for about a day until it started to grow cute little tails. I used this instead of bulgur wheat in the tabouleh – see below.
Quinoa Tabouleh
This was was pretty simple: Cilantro with a little parsley (finely chopped, a tomato in a small dice, a little finely chopped onion, a little finely diced red bell pepper, lemon juice, crushed chilies (they seem to get into a lot of things around here), salt and pepper. (Everyone has their own tabouleh recipe and mine varies from time to time. I’d have used some mint, but didn’t have any.) The tabouleh was a great success with the falafel and I also added some mushrooms and green beans in a ‘cheesy’ miso sauce.
Mushrooms & Green Beans In A Cheesy Sauce
The mushrooms were cut to bite size and the green beans cut across in 1/4-inch slices. The sauce was simply miso, tamari, rice vinegar, mirin, pepper, and nutritional yeast. Another success 🙂
I also have a couple of delicious soups to tell you about, but that’s for another day. Happy munching!
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