Favorite Fungus

How long has it been since a Vegetable of the Week post? Months, I bet.

Well, last night I made some delightful stuffed portobello mushrooms, and was inspired to write about this lovely vegetable, which is so rich in Vitamin D (something I am chronically deficient in) that it's perfect for these sunless winter months! Mushrooms are full of antioxidants too, and a good source of non-meat protein. And there are so many varieties and different ways of preparing them, there's something for everyone.

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I have some pretty awesome memories of mushroom hunting in the woods of Austria and Germany with my family as a child (now that seems kind of scary, but they knew what they were doing). I also remember going for a walk and finding a real red and white toadstool mushroom - it made it into the first page of my first-grade diary!

Nowadays I gather my mushrooms at Whole Foods and Kroger...

My absolute favorite risotto is made with shiitake mushrooms (so, so, so, so yummy!). I haven't made it in a while, because when I was first pregnant with both Henry and Violet, and my tummy felt a little off all the time, I made risotto at least twice a week for months. Here's another yummy way to serve mushrooms, if you're wanting a side dish - it's my favorite mushroom-only dish.

But the great thing about mushrooms, like all of the veggies I feature on Vegetable of the Week, is that they don't really need a "recipe" to be fabulous. You can almost always substitute mushrooms for meat in a dish - portobellos on the grill are better than beef burgers, if you ask me (if you live in Little Rock and you've never had the Portobello Sandwich at Loca Luna, you're missing out!). And I love mushrooms in pasta - any kind. I throw sauteed mushrooms into quesadillas and omelets (with Gruyère - yum!) and almost always into spaghetti sauce (whether I add meat or not). I cook rice in chicken broth and then saute chopped onion and mushrooms, and mix the rice with the onions/mushrooms (Davis's favorite rice). Sometimes I just saute some mushrooms (use high heat when cooking them and don't crowd them in the pan, so they don't get mushy before they get cooked and brown around the edges) and then splash them with red wine and serve with steak and mashed potatoes (as a peace offering to my husband after too much risotto).