It's been a while!
A combination of laziness, being easily distracted, and being legitimately way too busy at times has conspired to keep me away from this blog. But no longer!
Anyway, to business. My roommate and I enjoy cooking. Arguably more importantly, we enjoy food. I also happen to enjoy writing and as I've said before, I don't do nearly enough of it. I therefore have decided to document a recent creation of ours. From time to time, we attempt somewhat ambitious culinary projects and I think it's high time that we start actually recording these creations for posterity, rather than let them dissolve in our bellies, never to be seen again... that is, as edible food.
So what did we make? This.
Yes, 'tis true, we totally stole the recipe from Epicurious, from Cucina Rustica, but whatevs. A short description: portobello mushrooms marinaded with a balsamic vinegar/EVOO/soy sauce-based combination, stuffed with spinach, more mushrooms, onions, and goat cheese.
I chose it because I googled ingredients that I enjoy (portobellas, spinach, goat cheese) and this is what I came upon. It was a tad on the time-consuming side, but the result was quite excellent and delicious. Allow me to show you:
There were originally five portobellas, but I believe two of them had already been consumed by the time I thought to make this into a blog post. Also included is the wheat Italian bread, which went well with the marinade that was left over.
Changes? Well, we only used five portobellas instead of the six the recipe called for, because five was all we had. We used a 16-oz frozen spinach package instead of 10 oz, but still adjusted the amount of button mushrooms to about 13 oz instead of a lb, to account for the fact that we had only five portobellas instead of six. I believe my roommate used white wine instead of the optional marsala... or something. Everything else was more or less the same.
Critiques? There was way too much filling. We had some left over, which we simply ate with the bread. It was amazing filling, to be sure, but there was excessive filling on the portobellas, in my opinion, such that the taste of the portobellas was almost an afterthought really. Granted, I did opt for way more spinach than what the recipe calls for, but given how much spinach generally shrinks when cooked, I feel like there shouldn't've been this much filling. One easy solution, I suppose, would be to simply have more portobellas on hand!
The marinade? Meh. Reviewers on Epicurious claim it is too strong, but I didn't feel anything about it, mostly because of the filling issue I mentioned above. When I dipped the bread in the marinade, I must admit that it's not really my favorite -- I might have preferred something with less balsamic vinegar as many of the reviewers say -- but it was fine.
Overall? AMAZING. But time-consuming. Perhaps suitable for a special occasion or when one has too much time to kill on the weekend (which probably won't happen too often until maybe the summer), and while there are some issues (admittedly we didn't follow the recipe strictly to the letter), it's a great recipe. We had it as our main dinner, though I think it would be great as an appetizer for a dinner party.
Ah, it's late, and Game of Thrones calls to me. I think that does it!
