Stuffed Mushrooms for Last Minute Appetizers

Stuffed Mushrooms are the kind of appetizer that takes no time to make, you're likely to have all of the ingredients in your refrigerator and pantry, and they are delightful bite full of flavor.

Stuffed Mushrooms Ingredients:

15 medium Baby Bella Mushrooms (a whole container)

2 tbsps of Olive Oil

1/3 cup of Italian Bread Crumbs

1 tbsp of Skim Ricotta Cheese

2 tbsps grated parmesean

2 tsps of italian seasoning

Dash of Red Pepper Flakes

Salt and Pepper to taste

Add chopped basil, or parsley, chopped garlic

First rinse and rub all of the mushrooms and let them dry.  Remove all of the stems and reserve.  Take the stems and chop them to a small chop.  

In a small bowl add all of the seasonings, cheese, bread crumbs and olive oil.  Add to that the chopped mushrooms.

With a fork mix all of the ingredients.  This recipe is sort of the exact opposite of baking; you can swap out other ingredients, you can change the seasoning, want more spice, less spice, no cheese, more veggies, this is a great clean out the pantry in a flash recipe.

Prepare the oven to 400 degrees and put parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Turn the mushrooms cavity down and lightly oil the outside of the mushrooms, and sprinkle to taste with salt and pepper.  With a small spoon, or of course your fingers, stuff the mushrooms to the top.

Bake for twenty minutes.  Allow to cool, just long enough so that when you pop an entire mushroom in your mouth and it's not so hot that you have to do that "it's too hot" dance.  Enjoy!

Going Bananas for Plantains

I love bananas for breakfast, it's what I ate for breakfast this morning.  Plantains on the other hand are not for breakfast, but equally (if not more delicious).  I am not a food scientist a la Alton Brown but I did a little research so I'll pass it on so we'll all know how bananas and plantains are different fruits.  

Plantains are in a green, thick skin, they can't be eaten raw and are starchy and used as a vegetable, whereas bananas, well you know, yellow, think skin, sweet, good in cereal!

When we had our Latin fiesta night in addition to the watermelon, salsa and Mexican inspired s'mores we also served tostones, or plantain fritters.

Tostones Ingredients:

3 Large Plantains (party of 8)

Vegetable Oil of some variety, we used Canola

Kosher Salt

Open the tostones, you'll probably need a knife as they don't break open as easily as a banana.  Cut slices that are about 1 inch long. 

Put oil in a large pan (about an 1/3 inch high) over heat over a medium/high flame.  When the oil is hot enough, not burning or bubbling, but hot enough to react if you flicked some water from your finger tips into the oil, place plantains in slice side down.

Cook plantains for about 2  minutes on each side. 

This is a sensitive time, you'll want to keep an eye out so you can get a nice rich caramel color on the fried side.  Too light and thetostones will be too starchy, too dark, they might taste like burned sugar.

Set up all of the fried tostones on layers of paper towel to absorb any of the oil that is being released, just like latkes, onion rings, or anything fried you'll want to mop up the extra oil so you can get right to the flavors of the food.  Stop!  Do not discard the extra oil!

Time to smash!  I suppose if you had kids, which I don't, this could be a fun thing for them to do with supervision. (This was also a great thing for Mark to do, that's him!)  Set up a cutting board and grab a can from the cupboard.  Smash!  Smashing the plantains to about a 1/2 inch will be perfect.

The smashed plantains go back in the oil for about 20-30 seconds on each side just to crisp up the sides, and then back on new paper towels.

This is delicious now, and ready to eat.  But to maximize that salty-sweet combination that is so hard to beat grab that Kosher salt and lightly sprinkle over the tostones, then just try not to eat all of them!

Melon Lemon - A Good Mix

So, this isn't really a recipe - but it is a must, must, must do.  

See that bowl of watermelon you chopped up the other day?  It's sitting in your refrigerator.  Maybe you grab a few pieces every now and then as a refreshing snack.  Oh, you don't have a gigantic bowl of watermelon in your fridge?  Can you please go get one?  It's a primary ingredient in this non-recipe recipe.

Continuing on...  Remember how you bought a bag of lemons for homemade lemonade, or to throw in a bottle of Corona (depending on the type of weekend you had)?  Take that lemon, cut a wedge and squeeze all of the sour, lemony juice over the chunks of watermelon.  

That little squirt transforms the watermelon.  No joke, like Cinderella style, a "She's All that That transformation.  The watermelon is no longer simple, juicy fruit, it is now exotic, tart, and full of flavor.  The natural sugars concentrate and it's like you're eating chunks of summer, if your summers are spent on the beach in Mexico. 

I have to give credit where credit is due.  This trick - which pretty much changed the watermelon eating portion of my life - came courtesy of my sister's boyfriend's housemate.  And now you have it via me.  You can tell your friends you learned this from your favorite blogger's sister's boyfriend's friend.