Stuffed Grilled Portabellas!

Do you like grilled foods?  The weather so far has been really awesome this week so let's grill out!  I absolutely love grilled portabella mushrooms, so this was a real treat to make.

For this recipe, I am using one of my favorite varieties of garlic, German Red.  This was obtained from Hope Valley Farm at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY.  I myself didn't go to this, but my dad's cheese company (Cooperstown Cheese Company) had a booth with many garlicky cheeses.  Again, this garlic is one of my favorites I have discovered so far.  It has such a robust smell and flavor!

The cute dog above is Rugby!  He was getting in the way of my "Garlic Photo Shoot" so I decided to have some fun with him in these pictures.  I took a bunch, so there may be more in future blog posts using this German Red garlic...

Ingredients for this recipe:

• 3 Portabella Mushrooms
• Toma Torino Cheese (Cooperstown Cheese Company)
• 5 Cloves of Garlic (German Red from Hope Valley Farm)
• Mixed Olives (such as these from Pickle Licious)
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• Olive Oil
• Bread Crumbs
• 1/2 Tsp Thyme
• 1/2 Tsp Oregano
• 1/2 Tsp Basil
• 1 Tbsp Mustard
• Anaheim Pepper

First, get your grill fired up!  If you are like me, make sure you check it multiple times in case the fire decides to die out.

Next, gently pull the stems off the mushrooms.  Put the stems in a food processor, and save for later.

Roughly cut up the cheese for the food processor as well.  I used about an 1/8th of a pound of Toma Torino from Cooperstown Cheese Company.  This is a very delicious Italian-style, Alpine table cheese that I also used a few weeks ago in my "Chicken ala After Manhattans" post.

Now, add the cheese, peeled garlic cloves, and about a couple dozen olives to the food processor.  Process until there are no more big chunks.

 

Add the herbs (thyme, oregano, basil), mustard, and lemon juice.  Mix these in.  Also add in olive oil and bread crumbs until it starts to look like a paste.  Divide this between the three mushrooms, spreading over the top.

Sprinkle some bread crumbs on top of the mushrooms, and then drizzle olive oil over that.  Finish off by adding sliced anaheim peppers (or peppers of your choice, this was just what was from my garden).

When the coals of your grill are ready, keep them to one side, and start the mushrooms on the side with the coals.  After about 4 minutes (when the mushrooms start to sizzle), move to the side without the coals.  We were also grilling chicken, so at this time we added the chicken to the side with the coals.  Cover the grill, and let it cook.  About halfway through cooking the mushrooms, spin so the side facing away from the coals faces them (around 7 minutes).

When the sides of the mushrooms seem all the way cooked (they are now a darker brown), they can come off the grill.  This would be about 12-15 minutes from first moving them to the side of the grill without coals.

With this meal, we also grilled chicken thighs (with Lawry's Salt), and made a zucchini side (zucchini, tomato,onion, Jersey Girl cheese, and spices).