It’s a doozy when my boyfriend and I eat dinner with my family. Kimo is a good old fashioned carnivore. As far as animals go, my dad and I eat chicken and fish (he eats turkey, I wont). My sister Tanyja will only eat fish. My other sister, Noelle is a vegan. And my mom is allergic to gluten, plus she’s vegetarian.
Is your head spinning?
Imagine trying to find a restaurant to please us all.
Yeah, it’s not fun. We usually stick to Thai or I cook.
Anyway, since my sister went vegan and my mom’s allergy was unveiled, I had to get even more creative when it came to cooking.
I spent quite a few hours thinking about the main course for Christmas. Kimo wanted a turkey, which was totally fine. As for my immediate family, I wanted to do something a little more special than stuffed bell peppers. So instead I concocted these lovely stuffed mushrooms. It’s still a stuffed vegetable, but hey, I didn’t have to scoop out a squash.
Shout out to my mom who stuffed all of the mushrooms, while I was busy making the best batch of cranberry sauce I’ve ever made.
I used olive oil and nutritional yeast to add a hint of creaminess. And because I couldn’t use breadcrumbs, I decided to use quinoa. If you eat cheese, I think these would be wonderful with some good parmesan grated right into the mixture and/or sprinkled on top.
Ingredients
- 32 oz of mushrooms, washed and de-stemmed
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa (Cook it as you normally would and use the entire cooked amount in the recipe)
- 4 cups roughly chopped spinach (I chopped mine in the blender)
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp granulated garlic
- 2 tbsp dried parsley
- salt + pepper to taste
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350*F.
Wash and de-stem the mushrooms, laying them on a large cookie sheet covered with a towel to absorb the water.
Mix together the quinoa and spinach in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the nutritional yeast, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper on the quinoa and mix. Once throughly mixed, add the olive oil and mix again. Have another cookie sheet ready to place the stuffed mushrooms in.
One by one stuff the mushrooms using a teaspoon. It’s ok if the mixture overflows a bit, but press it down as much as you can without breaking the mushroom.*
Once they’re all stuffed, place in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes until tender. Place on a platter and serve!
And that is it. It’s crazy simple and really delicious. What is in your favorite stuffed mushrooms?
*The mushrooms can be prepared the day before. Bake before serving.
xo, LOV
