It's seven o' clock as I write and it's
still light outside. Which is lovely.
This time of year always makes me
want to go wandering round National Trust properties and do lots of
studying. It's sort of lucky that I have a dissertation and a whole
bunch of exam revision to do really... (I also got to go to a National
Trust place this weekend - Ightham Mote, it was lovely-pictures below.)
These lighter evenings make it an awful lot easier to take food photos - living in a flat in halls with awful neon lighting doesn't make for
particularly appetising ones. But, tonight I was in the
kitchen making dinner, the light looked lovely and I just had to get
some photos.
Basically, I love mushrooms. (Bryony doesn't! Which means that if we're out and she has food with mushrooms in I always get to eat her mushrooms, so I'm not really complaining...) These are my rice stuffed mushrooms. I've blogged stuffed mushrooms
before, but these ones are different. Possibly better....
But you'll
just have to make both recipes and try them out for yourselves...
Rice stuffed mushrooms (to serve two as a main or four as a side):
150g long grain rice
2 white onions
6 spring onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp mixed Italian herbs
1 stock cube
4 flat cap mushrooms
A liberal handful of grated cheddar cheese
A knob of butter and a dash of olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
Cook the rice (You place in a saucepan of boiling water and cook for
about fifteen minutes until the rice is tender. Don't stir it too much
or the starch from the rice is released and it goes all gooey. Drain the
rice in a colander, and rinse it through with hot water.)
2. While the rice is cooking, finely chop the onions. Heat a knob of butter
and dash of olive oil in a large saucepan, and add the onion. Fry
gently.
3. Slice the spring onions and add to the pan, along with the dried herbs
and a crushed stock cube. Stir in thoroughly.
4. Crush the garlic (using a knife, or a special garlic crusher if you have
one) and add to the pan.
5. Cut the stems out of your mushrooms, chop these and add to the pan as
well.
6. By now your rice should be cooked. Add it to the onion/garlic/spring onion pan, season with salt and pepper and stir
through thoroughly. Turn off the heat.
7. Place your mushrooms in a reasonably high sided dish or roasting tray,
and add a generous spoonful of the rice mixture to each mushroom. If
there's any left in the pan after you've run out of room in your
mushrooms just stuff it into the gaps between them in the tray, burying
the mushrooms. Top with the cheese.
8. Place the mushroom/rice tray into the oven and cook for about twenty to
thirty minutes until the cheese is melted and golden.
9. Take the tray out and serve the mushrooms. I ate
mine with parsnips, but I think this would go really well with cheesy leeks, or even as a side to go with a quiche or a tart.
