Grilled Portobello Pizza

Okay P10 peeps - I gotta confession to make...

I'm wearing myself out trying to keep up with work, home and blogging every day.  Most bloggers only post once a week but I know we need all the ideas and encouragement we can get.  So I'm not complaining, mind you, just sharing.  I'd like to share some of your recipes here on the blog (and give you credit, of course).  My only issue is that it has to be something you've made and tried. 

I don't get a chance to experiment much, which is why you see a lot of recipes on this blog that I got from other places - in case you haven't ever seen them yourself.  I hope you still love me in spite of that! 

Another reason I'd like to be able to share your recipes is that we all have different tastes, and I'm pretty conventional...for instance, you can see that spicy isn't my thing but it might be yours so I don't want to hold you guys back from trying stuff that I wouldn't normally make.  So please feel free to send me some of your P10 recipes that you'd like to share.  You can email them to me at p10eats(at)aol(dot)com or message me on the Facebook page.  Please take a picture if you can!

Today's recipe is courtesy of Cindy Elder - she is an experimenting machine!  She's always throwing stuff together and coming up with neat ideas.  I LOVE this one!  And like she says, you can change it up any way you'd like and come up with your own version of...

Grilled Portobello Pizza

makes 1 serving

recipe courtesy of Cindy Elder

Cindy - I'm not very good at giving an exact recipe, since living overseas has taught me to do this/do that until it works! 

Try this pizza different ways - Asian, Italian, Mexican, curry, chicken...endless possibilities. Like the potato topper phase years ago!

1 portabella mushroom

1 cup assorted veggies, chopped

1/2 tablespoon butter

Garlic powder or other seasonings

1 tablespoon cheese, grated

Wash mushroom and remove stem. Put in the oven under the broiler, at high (but not highest) heat, and let it cook on both sides.

Meanwhile, sauté veggies in butter, (to your taste; I used red onion, bell pepper, zucchini, and later added chopped tomato) seasoned as you'd like (I used garlic powder) for about 5-6 minutes.

Remove mushroom from oven, turn upside down, carefully spoon veggies on top (inside the cap); return to oven and heat for another 5 minutes or so.

Add grated cheese and return to oven until cheese is melted. 

Mushroom Soup

I can’t begin to describe how delicious this soup is.  It’s very warm and velvety and comforting and as far away from the canned crap of mushroom soup as you can get.

This recipe is from the book “Comfort Me with Apples” by Ruth Reichl.  Ruth is the former editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and she has written several books, my favorite of which are her best-selling memoirs: Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table; Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table; and Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise.  I love these books about her unusual childhood and her ongoing love affair with food and feeding those she loved.  Garlic and Sapphires was especially funny, as she had started working as the food critic for the New York Times and had to wear disguises so she wouldn’t be recognized.  The way this woman describes food should probably be censored…it’s that good.

This recipe was a mainstay for Ruth during a very hard time in her life and she found a lot of comfort in making and eating it.  I revised the recipe to use almond flour rather than regular flour.  I think I'll still need to tweak it a bit (maybe use ground flaxseed?) to get it juuuuuust right, but I don't make it too often 'cause Bubba doesn't care for mushrooms...he's a good sport about it though. 

Mushroom Soup

makes 4 servings

1/2 pound (8 oz) mushrooms, thinly sliced

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

1 small onion, diced

4 tablespoons almond flour

1 cup beef broth

2 cups half and half

salt and pepper

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 bay leaf

Melt the butter in a heavy sauté pan over medium-low heat.  When the foam subsides, add the onion and sauté until golden.  Add the mushrooms and sauté until brown.

Stir in the flour and then slowly add the broth, stirring constantly.

Heat the half and half in a saucepan or in the microwave.  Add it to the mushrooms, along with the salt, pepper, nutmeg and bay leaf.  Cook over low heat for 10 minutes; do not boil.

Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Print this recipe:  Mushroom Soup

Tamari Mushrooms

This was a big hit the other night.  I served it with some salmon that I cooked using the Bronzed Sea Bass recipe I've posted previously.  Bubba doesn't like mushrooms, so he ate one, then first gave one to me, one to the Kid, etc.  He's a smart guy.

Most soy sauce contains gluten (wheat) but tamari is soy sauce that is more natural and it's not too difficult to find.  If you have an Asian ingredient aisle in your grocery store, check it out.

Tamari Mushrooms

2 tablespoons butter

8 ounces white button mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons tamari

ground black pepper to taste

Parsley, dried or fresh

Melt the butter in frying pan over medium heat; add the mushrooms; cook and stir until the mushrooms have softened and released their liquid, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic; continue to cook and stir for 1 minute.

Add the tamari; cook the mushrooms in the tamari until the liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle fresh parsley on top for garnish.

1/2 cup of mushrooms = 1 serving of veggies

Print the recipe:  Tamari Mushrooms

Creamed Mushrooms

I made these for dinner the other night and I was surprised at how good they were.  My husband doesn't even like mushrooms and he ate them too.  I served these with some small cuts of organic grass fed beef steak and roasted green beans.  They were a nice change from the usual sauteed mushrooms I always make with steak.

This recipe would be appropriate for Stages 1, 2 and 3.

Creamed Mushrooms
serves 2

1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice

8 oz container of small button mushrooms

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 a small onion or 1 shallot, finely chopped

1/4 cup whipping or heavy cream

1/2 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley or a big pinch of dried parsley

salt and pepper

Put mushrooms in a bowl and sprinkle about 1/2 a tablespoon of the lemon juice over them.

Heat the butter and oil in a skillet, add the onion and cook for about a minute.  Add the mushrooms and toss them into the onions and butter.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and stir in the cream and the rest of the lemon juice.

Heat until hot but don't boil.  Serve immediately.

1/2 cup = 1 veggie serving and 1/2 fat/dairy serving