I’ve had a real love affair with stuffed mushrooms of many varieties for many, many years. It started long before I was married or had kids. It started when I went to a restaurant with friends and didn’t feel particularly interested in anything on the menu and randomly decided to order a double appetizer for dinner instead. After that first taste, I was hooked.
This variety uses cubed bread instead of breadcrumbs, due to commercial breadcrumbs typically containing ingredients I don’t want to feed my family with any regularity and I don’t want to make breadcrumbs. Comfort food is about simplicity, flavor and for my home, fat soluble vitamins readily obtained from a pasture-based butter, aged cheeses and pastured meat. Let’s put a big emphasis on flavor, shall we? Therefore, let’s make some Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms, the simple way.
Ingredients (makes 6 appetizer servings)
Time: 65 minutes total, about 15-20 actual hands time)
1/2lb bacon chopped (I used pastured bacon from our pig purchase from a pasture based farmer. You can find one at eatwild.com)
1 chopped medium/average white onion (organic if possible)
2c or 5 average sized pieces of cubed or torn bread of choice (real sourdough or sprouted preferred, if not homemade, Alvarado St Bakery has clean-ingredient sprouted bread)
1/2t mineral-rich salt (here)
1t dried thyme (here)
1/2 c dry white wine of any variety split (organic if possible)
6T butter split (a pastured butter like Kerrygold)
1lb of baby bella or white mushrooms
2.5 c shredded cheese (I used pasture based aged cheddar and Gouda, mixed that I picked up from Trader Joes and quickly grated it)
Bake the chopped bacon and onions at 350F for 20-25 minutes depending on the thickness/cut of the bacon.
Bake the filled/stuffed mushrooms for 20 minutes at 350F.
Place chopped onion and bacon on a baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes till cooked through.
About halfway through the baking time, move the bacon and onions around so they are equally cooked in the bacon fat coming off of the bacon.
While the bacon and onions cook, put the bread, salt, thyme, 4T of the butter and 1/4c of the wine into a bowl. When the bacon and onions are cooked through, add them and the bacon fat to the bowl and mix well.
Rub the 2T remaining of the butter into the baking sheet that was just used for the bacon and onions (don’t wash in between, we want that bacon flavor left on there) and the last 1/4c of white wine. Just pour the wine directly on top.
Pull out the mushroom stems (pulling out the stems can be done when the bacon and onions are cooking in previous steps) and place them on the baking sheet.
Pile high each mushroom with filling (pack it together with your hands) and add on the cheese, then bake.
These just came out of the oven and I was swatting my husband away so I could get a bite. Get your own plate!
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