Tag Archives: side dish

Tapas-Style Sautéed Mushrooms

I’d been oggling Bev’s recipe for sautéed mushrooms on Tasty Kitchen for a while, and finally got around to making them for a big group of friends back in February. And oh are they good. They do have a long cooking time–about 50 minutes–but require very little supervision, so you can let them cook away while you focus on the main dish you’re preparing. And once they’re done–oh my. Soaked in sweet wine flavor, pungent with garlic, brightened by the parsley and lemon juice and slightly crunchy with coarse salt. This dish reminds me of my deep love of food, and the pleasure of cooking what I truly enjoy to the very roots of my taste buds.

I modified it to serve a larger group, and used sliced baby bella mushrooms instead of the whole mushrooms Bev used–I also increased the cook time to make sure all the wine was absorbed by the mushrooms. Here goes!

Ingredients

(Serves 6-8)

32 oz baby bella and white mushrooms, whole or sliced
6 TBS Butter
8 cloves garlic
3/4 cup Marsala wine
2 pinches coarse salt (kosher or sea salt)
2 cups minced fresh parsley
1 lemon, juiced

Mince the garlic and parsley, and juice the lemon.

Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. When bubbly, add the minced garlic and bloom for about 30 seconds.

Add the Marsala wine and bring it to a boil.

Add the mushrooms, lower the heat and cook (covered) for 25 minutes, stirring and lightly salting occasionally.

Uncover and continue to simmer the mushrooms for another 25 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding salt to taste until the liquid has been almost completely absorbed. I also tossed in a little black pepper–I can’t resist that stuff.

After a while the liquid will be nicely absorbed and the mushrooms will now be ready for you to fall in love with them.

Toss in the lemon juice and parsley, sprinkle with coarse salt, and serve.

If you already love mushrooms, I guarantee you will love this way of making them.

Next time I’m alone for dinner I dream of making a huge batch and eating the whole thing myself.

Just want everyone to know where I stand.

A fun serving idea–you could bring the cast iron to the table with a bunch of skewers or forks and have everyone share the mushrooms directly from the pan. That would be very español.

And can I just say? I’m so glad to be sharing recipes again after such a long pregnancy-induced hiatus. Aaaaahhh.

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Black Bean and Avocado Lime Quinoa

I love simplicity on a weeknight. And though the plethora of ingredients in this recipe may lead you to believe that it’s complicated, it’s not! You cook the quinoa and simply stir everything else in. I’ve made this many times, and the add-in ingredients are flexible and can be adjusted depending on the state of your pantry. So while it’s delicious just as written below, have fun playing and substituting!

This dish can function as a side, but I love it as a main dish. And my love will remain unshaken.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
Juice and zest of 1 lime
1 tsp kosher salt
2 TBS olive oil
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 small bunch cilantro
3-4 Roma tomatoes
1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz can corn
2 avocados
1 sprinkle lemon juice (for the avocado)
1 hard boiled egg
1 TBS melted butter
Optional: crumbled feta cheese

First: resist the urge to be overwhelmed. Yes, there appear to be a good many ingredients in that picture, but nothing complicated is happening with or to any of them. Take a deep breath and stick with me!

Now, quinoa. I used to be intimidated by it. It was an unknown, and it always takes a little extra energy to tackle something mysterious in the kitchen. Well let me assure you: this delicious little grain is nothing to be afraid of. Its tiny couscous-like pearls are simply cooked in boiling water, and then sit for 10 minutes to steam and soften. And that’s the extent of the Quinoa Threat.

Let’s see this funky lil’ grain in action!

Boil the 2 cups of water in a large pot. When boiling, adjust the heat to medium, add the quinoa . . .

. . . and cook (uncovered) for 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed. After 15 minutes, cover the pot and turn off the heat.

Let the quinoa sit for 10 minutes and get happy. See? Nothing to fear at all.

Hard boil that egg. After 7 minutes of boiling and a couple minutes sitting in the hot water, mine was perfection.

Dice up the tomatoes and cilantro:

Bam! Bam! Toss them in a bowl.

Peel and cube the avocado, sprinkling the pieces with a little lemon juice to avoid browning.

As you can see, I left a few of the prettier slices whole, to use as a garnish.

Drain and rinse the black beans:

And drain the can of corn while you’re at it.

Chop up the hardboiled egg too–and now all the chunky ingredients are ready to be added once the quinoa is done:

Beautiful! Colorful. Healthy.

Zest and juice the lime into a bowl:

Add the salt, sugar, and pepper . . .

. . . and whisk in the olive oil and butter to form the dressing.

As you can see, I couldn’t be bothered with melting the butter, knowing it would simply melt in the hot quinoa.

Once the quinoa is done, mix everything together in the pot:

This dish can be eaten hot or cold, but I like it at least warm, so if you do too, heat everything for a couple minutes over low heat.

Serve it up! You can sprinkle a little feta on top too, if you’re in the mood for some dairy bliss.

I, surprisingly, wasn’t. I also didn’t have any feta on hand, so maybe that was part of it.

It’s so good. I love, love, love this dinner–there’s no rolling away from the table with a rock in your stomach after a bowl of this veggie-licious combo. I hope you guys like it too!

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