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).

"Chicken ala After Manhattans"

And now for a second week of cooking with my father!  Drinks of choice for this cooking experience were Manhattan for Dad (hence the title of this dish) and water for myself (normally I'd partake, but wasn't a good week to do so...besides it was fun to observe and assist the master at work).  I have to be honest with you all, I had different plans for what I wanted to make, and with the changes made, I really wasn't sure how it'd turn out.  Even with the initial doubts, the end product was fantastic!

My ingredient list for this week:

• Polish Sausage (from a butcher in Cairo, NY)
• Chicken Thighs (about 3.5 lbs cut into strips)
• 1 Sweet Onion
• 2 Roasted Red Bell Peppers
• Marinated Artichokes (1/2 pint from Pickle Licious)
• 4 Large Cloves of Garlic
• Toma Torino (from Cooperstown Cheese Company)
• Mozzarella
• Whiskey
• Vermouth
• 1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 Tsp Cayenne
• 3 Tsp Cumin
• Butter 
• Whole Wheat Angel Hair Pasta

 First of all, get water heating for the pasta.

Next, roast the red peppers.  Set your oven to broil, and put your peppers (with the stem cut off) on a baking sheet in the oven.  When one side starts to blacken, flip it to another side, and do so until it has been partially blackened on all sides.  Once out of the oven and cooled down, peel the skin off, slice and cut those slices in half.

Slice the whole onion.  I used the same type of garlic I used in the jambalaya, but instead of mincing it, I thinly sliced each clove.

Take this time to also slice up the cheese you have.  I used Toma Torino from Cooperstown Cheese Company, which is an Italian, Alpine table cheese.  I also used cheese trimmings that we had, so the best equivalent to those would be Mozzarella.
 
Once the veggies and cheese are cut, it's time to cut up the meat.  Cut the chicken thighs into strips, and the sausage into chunks.  The sausage was from a butcher in Cairo, NY, and smelled very garlicky!

Mix the flour, cayenne, and cumin together, and put it into a plastic bag with the chicken to coat it.

Now it is time to start cooking everything.  Put olive oil in your pan, and crank the heat to medium-high.  Cook the sausage until it is brown, and almost cooked all the way through.  Once done, transfer the sausage to a plate with a paper towel to soak up some of the grease.

Next, add 2 Tbsp of butter to the pan, and once melted, cook the chicken (since there is a lot, feel free to cook it in batches).  When the chicken is brown, and no longer pink in the middle, take out of the pan, and turn down the heat.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Add a little bit of whiskey to de-glaze the pan, with the rest being vermouth (being the less expensive of the alcohols).  Once the stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan is scraped up and into the sauce, add the garlic, onions and sausage.  When the onions are soft, add the chicken, cover the pan, and let it simmer to ensure the meat is all the way cooked.

Add the roasted red pepper and marinated artichokes and mix.  Finally add the cheese to the top of everything, and put in the oven.  When the cheese starts to brown, take out and it is ready to eat!