Stuffed Mushrooms? Yes, please!!

Continuing with the mushroom theme, I'd like to share with everyone a copycat recipe I found for Olive Garden's stuffed mushrooms. If you haven't had the Olive Garden's stuffed mushrooms, you're missing out. They are fricken fantastic! There's clams and cheese and goodness in those scrumptious bites... just thinking about them is making my mouth water.

Olive Garden's Stuffed Mushrooms Copy Cat Recipe

8 – 12 Fresh Mushrooms
1 (6 oz.) Can Clams (drained and finely minced) (save 1/4 cup of clam juice for stuffing)
1 Green Onions (chopped finely, about 1 Tbsp.)
1 Egg (beaten)
1/2 tsp. Minced Garlic
1/8 tsp. Garlic Salt
1/2 C. Italian Style Bread Crumbs
1tsp. Oregano Leaves
1 Tbsp. Melted Butter (cool)
2 Tbsp. Finely Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Tbsp. Finely Grated Romano Cheese
2 Tbsp. Finely Grated Mozzarella Cheese ( for stuffing )
1/4 C. Finely Grated Mozzarella Cheese (for garnish)
1/4 C. Melted Butter
Wash and remove stems from mushrooms, pat dry. In mixing bowl place clams, onions, garlic salt, minced garlic, soft butter and oregano. Mix through and blend well. Add Italian bread crumbs, egg, clam juice and blend. Stir cheeses in clam stuffing and mix well.
Place clam mixture inside mushroom cavity and slightly mound clam mixture. You should be able to stuff between 8 – 12 mushrooms depending on the size of mushrooms.
Place mushrooms in slightly oiled baking dish. Pour melted butter over mushrooms. Cover and place in a preheated oven at 350 decrease for about 35 – 40 minutes. Remove cover and sprinkle freshly grated mozzarella cheese on top and pop back in oven just so the cheese melts slightly, garnish with freshly diced parsley.

I recently made this recipe and it is amazing. I just used canned parmesan cheese instead of the 2 TBSP of parmesan and 1 TBSP of Romano cheeses. I'm pretty sure I used way more than 2 TBSP of mozarella as well... The recipe is courtesy of http://www.copykat.com/2009/02/02/olive-garden-stuffed-mushrooms/

Mushroom Sauce

Lately I've become a little bit obsessed with mushrooms. They seem to be finding their way into all of my favorite recipes, and sauces are no exception. I thought it would be fun to share my "secret" to making a fabulous mushroom sauce that can be tweaked to work with whatever you're making.

First of all, make your sauce in whatever pan you've cooked your protein in. I don't know why, but pouring all of the drippings into a saucepan doesn't work as well as just making the sauce in your roasting pan or skillet or whatever you're using.

What I like to do is pour the clear layer off the drippings in the pan, saving only the actual drippings from the protein. Then I add in a couple of TBSP of flour, not really enough to make a roux, but enough to really thicken the mass. Make sure you work out all the lumps at this point. To that I add in between 1 1/2 - 2 cups of broth. If you're cooking chicken, use chicken broth; if you're cooking beef, use beef broth, etc. Use a whisk to stir incorporate the broth to the fat/flour mixture. At this point you should add in the mushrooms (and onions?? Yum!) then let the mixture simmer while the onions cook. You can add cooked or raw mushrooms or even canned mushrooms. It's your choice, they all work very well. When the mushrooms are cooked, add in some herbs (use the same types of herbs you used in the main dish) and a dash of milk if you want to make it into a cream sauce. The longer you cook the sauce, the thicker it will get. It's really that simple!

PRODUCT REVIEW: Hamilton Beach 6 Cup Food Processor

On Monday I went to Target and bought my very first food processor. After reading a lot of reviews, I chose the Hamilton Beach 6 cup food processor for just under $35. I've had a week to use it and so far I'm pretty impressed. The bowl is large enough to handle all of the jobs I've thrown at it so far, and the motor is powerful enough to make pie dough in just a few seconds. My only complaint is that the person who designed the machine was left-handed and didn't actually know anything about cooking. The controls are on the left side of the machine, so you have to cross over the bowl to operate them with your right hand. It's also a sort of rounded knob that you twist versus a button like most food processors. I find that most of the time my hands are too wet/gunky while I'm cooking to be able to grip the knob. I would have preferred buttons. However, the cheap price more than makes up for the poor design and I'm willing to wipe my hands off in order to save a little money. Lastly, the food processor comes with a slicing/grating disk. You may as well just throw it away, because there's a good 1/2 inch between the food chute and the disk, so most of the food just bounces around in that half in space instead of getting sliced/grated.

Touchdown! Super Easy Superbowl Snacks

Since the superbowl is this weekend, I figured I should follow the trend amongst food blogs and weigh in on my favorite superbowl snacks.

1.) Sweet & sour meatballs

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen italian meatballs

1 12oz jar of grape jelly

1 12oz jar of chili sauce

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a crock pot, turn to high and let cook, stirring occassionally, for 2 hours or until sauce is well blended and meatballs are heated through.

2.) Guacamole

Ingredients:

2 ripe avacados

1 tsp salt

1 TBSP lime juice

1 can green chilis OR 1 finely diced hot pepper

1 small roma tomato, finely diced

1/2 small onion, finely diced

Directions:

Mash avacado with salt and lime juice. Mix in chili's, tomato and onion. Serve with tortilla chips.

3.) Bacon wrapped scallops

Ingredients:

Bacon

Scallops

Butter

Directions:

Wrap bacon around scallops, securing with a toothpick. Place scallops in an oven safe dish and add 2-3 TBSP of cubed butter. Bake at 400* for approximately 10 minutes or until the scallops and bacon are cooked through.

4.) Hot wings

Ingredients:

1 bag chicken wings

3 eggs

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

oil for deep frying

1 cup franks red hot sauce

1/2 stick of butter

Directions:

Heat oil in a deep fryer. While oil is heating set up 2 dishes side by side near the deep fryer. In the dish farthest from the deep fryer, whisk your eggs until homogenous. In the dish closest to the deep fryer combine flour and cayenne pepper (note: add more cayenne pepper to increase the heat of your wings). Coat chicken wings in egg mixture, then flour mixture and fry in deep fryer approximately 4 minutes or until cooked through and flesh is no longer pink. In a small sauce pan melt the butter, then add the franks hot sauce. Continue heating another minute or until the sauce is warm. Coat chicken wings in sauce mixture and serve with blue cheese dressing for dipping along with carrot and celery sticks.

5.) Bagel Pizza's

Ingredients:

1 jar marinara sauce

6 bagels (makes 12 pizza's), onion flavor works nicely

2 cups shredded mozarella cheese

grated parmesan cheese

toppings such as pepperoni, onion, sausage, peppers, mushrooms, etc.

Directions:

Split bagels in half and place cut side up on a cookie sheet. Spread marinara sauce on each bagel liberally. Top with desired toppings, mozarella cheese and parmesan cheese. Bake 350* for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted and bagels are toasted.

Valentines Day Gift Idea

Here's a Valentines Day gift idea for your sweetie available at Red Envelope, and it works even better if you're handy in the kitchen. It's a Picnic backpack! Order the backpack and whip up your sweeties favorite treats, then go for a romantic picnic for two in your living room! (Or go for a real out-door picnic if you live somewhere that isn't too cold.) When the weather gets nicer this gift can be used again for summer time picnics -- saving a bundle on lunch costs during a day out!

Coupon Holder

I've recently been trying to get into using grocery coupons more. I clip them every week, but it seems like I stash them away in various places throughout the house and can't find them later when I want them or I just forget them when I go grocery shopping. To help myself out I went to Walmart and got a check organizer and labeled each section to correspond to the type of coupon, for example I made a Dairy section, a Meat section, a Baking section, etc. Then when the paper comes I just pull out the coupons, grab my little organizer and a pair of scissors and go to it. When I go grocery shopping I just pick up the entire organizer with all of my coupons and I head out. I made sure to leave the very back pocket empty with a blank tab, because when I'm at the store I put the coupons I'm using in that section as I grab the item off the shelf. That way, when I get to the register there's no sorting necessary, I just take the stack from the back pocket and hand it to the cashier. There's actually a product on the market, called the Jokari EZ coupon holder that has extra velcro on the flap so you can attach it to the handle of your shopping cart (see picture). I find this extra functionality totally unnecessary, but some people might really like it.

Coupons

Here's a run-down of my 3 favorite coupons & samples sites.

Have you ever checked out the free sample section of the Walmart website? You can request FREE samples of various products. The offerings change frequently so check back regularly. This link is for a free coupon booklet with $17 worth of savings, all you have to do is fill out the form and your booklet will be in the mail.
Free Coupon Booklet

Target offers in-store coupons that you can print from their website and use in their stores. They seem to have better savings than manufacturers coupons and you can select only the ones you want to print. Target Coupons

Smart Source sends out those lovely coupons that come in the newspaper. They also have a website with printable coupons for additional savings.

P&G e-saver

Okay, this is seriously cool. P&G has a page on their site where you can sign up and register your customer loyalty cards (those lovely little key fobs that grocery stores require you to use to get the sale prices on items) to get e-coupons. The coupons are automatically linked to your customer loyalty card and the discount is applied when the cashier at the participating store scans your card. That means no clipping coupons, no remembering coupons, and no chance of losing coupons!! What a great idea!

Here's the link to sign up and register your loyalty cards:
P&G e-saver Program

Orange Julius Recipe

I was randomly thinking about the famous mall drink -- the orange julius and I thought I'd post a quick recipe for everyone to make at home.

Ingredients:
3 oz frozen OJ mix
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
2 TBSP sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
7-9 ice cubes

Directions:
1.) Combine all ingredients except for ice cubes in a blender.
2.) Add ice cubes 1 at a time and blend until smooth after each addition until the desired consistency is reached.
3.) Drink!

My Iron Chef Challenge

Ingredients:
-Whole mushrooms
-Leftover baked chicken
-Zucchini
-Leftover marinara sauce
-Garlic
-Red Pepper
-Parmesan cheese (yes, the kind in a can)
-onion

My meal: Italian stuffed mushrooms
I shredded the zucchini, then sauteed it in a frying pan with diced leftover chicken, garlic, some diced onion, and diced red pepper. I seasoned the mixture with salt and pepper then stuffed it into mushroom caps. Marinara sauce and parmesan cheese topped the mushrooms and the whole thing was baked at 375* for 20 minutes. The end result was delicious! It just goes to show that anything crammed into a mushroom cap is instantly fantastic.