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stuffed mushroomsEvery now and then I get a creative urge and want to experiment in the kitchen. Often it turns out for the worse and I’m glad to be done with that experiment. But sometimes, like these awesome stuffed mushrooms, it turns out to be pretty amazing. Since I hate finding a recipe online and having to scroll through mumbo jumbo to get to the details, I will cut to the chase and give you the details up front, and talk about why I like these things a little later.

 

Ingredients List:

Preparation and Baking:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

The process is pretty easy. Put the quinoa on the stove with ½ cup of water. Set that to high and let the water boil away, stir occasionally.

In the meantime, on another burner, cook the breakfast sausage.

Crush your garlic and smash it into pieces. Put it into a small pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Put it on a burner over medium heat.

Remove the stems from your mushrooms and scrape out the gills (to give you more room to stuff). Set these aside.

After your quinoa is cooked, dump it into a bowl. Add the sausage when that is ready. When the garlic browns, dump it into the bowl too (don’t get it too dark or it will taste burnt). Dump in the grated cheese. Now mix it all up real good.

Spoon as much of the mixture into the mushrooms as possible and cover the top of the mushroom with a slice of cheese.

After all of your mushrooms are ready, bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes (let the cheese on top get brown and crispy).

Serve, eat, enjoy, repeat.

 

Why I Chose These Ingredients

quinoa stuffed mushroomsAs stated, I like to experiment. I have had stuffed mushrooms before, so when I saw mushrooms in the store it got me thinking. I have quinoa at home, but I rarely cook with it since I’m not a big fan of the taste or the texture. But when mixed with other ingredients, it’s not too bad. So I decided to work off mushrooms and quinoa.

 

sausauge stuffed mushroomsRoasted garlic is just a must. I love the smell, the taste, the lingering aftertaste, and everything about roasted garlic. It’s 11pm right now and I want to roast some garlic. Add extra olive oil, salt, and basil and you have the perfect dipping sauce; but that’s for another time.

 

 

roasted garlic stuffed mushroomsThe cheese selection is not random. I decided to grate Mahon 4 month forever cheese and mix into my filling for one reason: it is the best cheese I have ever had. I absolutely love it and I highly recommend picking some up (I get mine at Lucky’s Market). The topping cheese was based on the desire to stick with an aged cheese theme. Campo de Montalban happened to be one of the other aged cheeses that I have on hand, but the aged cheese theme isn’t arbitrary.

Cheese stuffed mushrooms

stuffed mushroomsNormally when cheese is subjected to heat it melts. We see this on cheesy fries, cheeseburgers, and basically everything else that is covered in cheese. This is not the case with aged cheese. There is some melting, but for the most part when aged cheeses are subjected to heat they crisp up and eventually will burn. For my stuffed mushrooms I wanted a cheese that would encapsulate and not become a gooey mess.

 

Naturally, you can choose whatever cheese you darn well please for your mushrooms.

The lack of seasoning is also deliberate. Mainly because the sausage packs plenty of spices already (and if you want to kick it up a notch, opt for a hot Italian sausage instead of breakfast sausage). But also I didn’t want to overwhelm the roasted garlic, quinoa, or cheeses. Mostly the cheeses. I love cheese.

stuffed mushrooms

The best part about these quinoa and sausage stuffed mushrooms (aside from the fact that I didn’t consult any existing recipe: although there may be one out there) is that you can prep everything ahead of time and then pop them in the oven when you are ready. The second best is that you can vary the recipe so much and come out with almost the same thing. For future experiments I plan to use smaller mushrooms that are easier to pop into the mouth as bite sized morsels.

quinoa and sausage stuffed mushrooms

 

Success: Quinoa and Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

I am quite proud of this creation. It is one of the few that I will definitely make again: hence the write up.

As a writer and SEO expert in Billings, Montana, I am always looking for new topics to write about to keep readers happy. When I have the time (that’s to be read: when my son is entertained by Daniel the Tiger), cooking is a great source of material. Plus, I get to eat my work.

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