stalling with snacks

We had a surprise guest for Marc’s birthday week— his brother!  Marc’s brother lives out of state, and it’s been quite a long time since they have seen each other.  To make sure the surprise went off without a hitch I had to stall Marc before I got the okay to procede to the restaurant.  How can I stall a hungry man from going to dinner?  Snacks!  But not just chips, it had to be something delicoius enough to stop him from wanting to  leaving the house.  Stuffed mushrooms did the trick!

• 1 lb of mushrooms
• Handful of parsley finely chopped
• ¾ cup of freshly grated parmesan
• ½ a shallot (depending on the size)
• ½ a garlic (depending on the size)
• 2 links of sausage out of the casings and browned (I was at the market yesterday and saw these “Vino & Formaggio Sausage” I had to try it.)
• 1 cup of bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

In the picture shown, there’s a piece of a French bread. I didn’t have bread crumbs but just a few pulses in my little food processor and—TA-DAH, bread crumbs. I mixed the fresh bread crumbs with the chopped parsley and place it in a mixing bowl and set it aside.
Preheat the oven to 400.
Take the sausage out of the casing, and brown:
After the sausage has cooled pulse it in the food processor for a couple of seconds. You are aiming for a fine texture that will blend well with the bread crumbs.
When cleaning the mushrooms, do not run them underwater. Mushrooms have a sponge-like texture and will absorb the water, thus ruin the delicate flavor and texture. Just take a clean cloth and wipe them. After the mushrooms are clean separate the stems and from the caps. Finely chop the stems.

Sauté the chopped stems with the garlic and shallot in the same pan as the sausage. This will add sausage flavor to the mushrooms. After the mushrooms have browned, lightly season them with salt and pepper, and add them to the mixing bowl along with the grated parmesan cheese.
In the mixing bowl you have everything you need to stuff the mushrooms.

Mix them together being careful not to crush the bread crumbs. Sample the stuffing and season with salt and pepper if needed.  Next, line the mushroom caps on a baking sheet and lightly brush with olive oil on both sides.
Next, take each mushroom and scoop the stuffing into the mushroom cavity where the stem once was. I like to do this over the mixing bowl so the excess stuffing falls back into the bowl. After the mushrooms are stuffed bake for about 20 minutes.

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