Tag: mushrooms

Apr232012April 23, 2012April 23, 20120Commentby Tony Hunt

Shrooms! (Mushrooms Stuffed Full of Yum)

Posted in Randomosity...

I’ve been REALLY craptastic about posting to the blog, I know it. No excuses here…luckily this blog was never a part of my livelyhood and the only people to yell at me about it are on twitter (and Amazon – apparently they have some sort of *rule* about their paid authors actually writing…go figure).

Anyhow…it’s time for some really awesome foodstuff, I’ve been coming up with more and more really original recipes lately. I’ve gotten some pretty awesome reviews of my mushrooms, straight out of Tony’s Kitchen!

Real Simple.

So Simple this almost isn’t a real blog post, but here it goes.

INGREDIENTS

Fresh white (champaign) Mushrooms - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.comMushrooms (8-16oz)
These are those regular white mushrooms you find int the produce areas of the grocery store, you can find better ones if you really want to go all the way, and if you really want to impress your favorite vegetarian, you can opt to go with portabellas and top them with the stuffing, tastes frickin AWESOME.



Black and Green Olives - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.comBlack Olives (6oz)
If you want cheap and fast, just get black minced olives in a can. If you prefer fresher (I do – always) find yourself a decent olive bar (usually only found in decent grocery stores) and get your fill. Be prepared to pay far too much for fresh olives though..it’s almost silly.



A fresh white onion - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.com1 Large White Onion (6-10ounces at least)
Green onion really won’t work too well in this, and purple onions don’t mince as well, as I like, so I usually opt for the white onions on this. I’ve run into a couple people that didn’t like onions, but didn’t even bat an eyelash at chowing down on these stuffed mushrooms, so unless they are allergic, I encourage people to try them before acting like you’re asking them to try castor oil 😉


Balls of Mozzarella Chesse - Stuffed Mushrooms - Tonytown.comMozzarella Cheese (8-16oz)
Finely shredded Moz is awesome. If you get fresher blocks it will make an incredible difference on the taste. If you have a Vegan in the group, you can substitute real Moz for Dairy-Free Mozzarella by Daiya Foods.

PREP

1. Preheat your oven to about 400 degrees (Fahrenheit).

2. Break the stems out of the mushrooms. I usually slice the stems for use in other sauces etc. No use in wasting good ingredients!

3. Mince the onion, the olives and the Moz. If you have a good processor you can mince this all at the same time until you have a fine paste. Otherwise, mince until you are comfy with the consistencies and mix them thoroughly together.

4. Treat the mushrooms like little bowls and you want to fill them up with the mixed stuffing. until they are overflowing by about 1/8 of an inch.

5. Place the mushrooms in a non-stick roasting pan. You only need to give them about a half inch space between so you should be able to fit quite a few in the pan.

COOKINS

Place the pan full of goodness into the preheated oven, and set your timer for 25 minutes.

NOTES
1. If you like your mushrooms’ texture to be more steamed than baked, you can easily pour a thin layer of water into the bottom of the roasting pan. About 1/4-3/8 of an inch of water will serve to effectively give you more juicy mushrooms.
2. If you opt for the Vegan Friendly version, please note that the Dairy-Free Mozzarella by Daiya Foods takes longer to melt so you may have to leave the Shrooms in the oven a bit longer. 😉


Tags:

Mar252011March 25, 2011March 20, 20199Commentsby Tony Hunt

The “Cowboy” Ribeye

Posted in Randomosity...

The “Cowboy” Ribeye is this awesome steak recipe we came up with back in my restaurant days. I’ve evolved it a bit since then, but the basic idea is still prevalent.

Originally I held off on publishing this because it was my baby-ace-primo-you-cant-have-it-like-this-without-my-invitation-once-a-year specialty. Until now I’ve only allowed this recipe into the hands of a few friends (namely Erica and Kevin)…but it’s time, and doing it right isn’t cheap in this case, so it’s not like everyone can do it. I don’t remember how the term “Cowboy” started…I think it was a reference to the garlic butter that we used the first time we tinkered with the recipe.

In truth, it’s all about the temperature and the marinade.

I am a HUGE fan of high end ribeyes. Almost to the point that I am an elitist. My favorite steak outside my own kitchen is that of a rather infamous cut at none other than Del Frisco’s Double Eagle of Steak House (of Addison)1. Now that said, I also like my steaks cooked “Pittsburgh Rare”2

1. This isn’t a ribeye you should cook to well done. If you like your meat well done, please be adventurous and try it at medium, because I don’t have any experience in preparing edible charcoal and honestly I don’t know how it might taste. This recipe cooks best between Pittsburgh and medium rare.

2. Get yourself as many ribeyes as you feel necessary to prove your prowess.3

3. Ingredients: (per steak)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/8 cup olive oil
1/8 tspn rosemary
1/8 tspn thyme
1/8 tspn sage
1/8 tspn oregano
1/2 tspn salt
1/2 tspn pepper
2 tspn minced garlic

4. Melt the butter/margarine in a mixing bowl, mix with oil, after mixed, drop in all the rest of the ingredients until thoroughly mixed together.

5. Lightly cover both sides of steaks with the marinade, with a heavier layer on top of the steak. Let sit in the marinade for a nice long time, I do mine for up to 8 hours(room temp), however it tastes really good even after only 20 minutes or so.4

6. Cook to desired temperature over flame. 5

You will notice in the pic we accompanied our grilling delight with a truly satisfactory beverage (Shiner 101). I suggest some easy stuffed mushrooms or twice-baked potatoes with these. We opted for the stuff mushrooms in this case. I will post the recipe for those next.

Show 5 footnotes

  1. Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House is one of the best steak houses in the entire state of Texas. Their website is www.delfriscos.com and if you really want a memorable steak experience, I highly suggest it. ↩
  2. Pittsburgh Rare is a steak temperature that is very high, allowing the steak to remain quite red on the inside with some char on the outside. This kind of steak preference isn’t for everyone, but it’s also one of the best methods of finding out if a steakhouse you’re new to actually knows what they are about. If they don’t know what “Pittsburgh” is when checking a preferred temp on your steak, I would be a little concerned, especially if they are trying to charge more than $15 for the steak. Here is a link to the Wikipedia’s article on Pittsburgh Rare. ↩
  3. I recommend you find them thick, like at least an inch thick, they dont have to be 18oz. cuts, but the thicker the steak the more control you have over cooking them properly, and the less likely you are to burn them all the way to the middle. ↩
  4. This sounds silly, but in my experience the absolute best way to insure a good soak is to use large ziplock freezer bags. They can take a beating, store well, don’t leak and you can leave them in the fridge with nothing to worry about while they soak. ↩
  5. If you’re going to grill to a Pittsburgh Rare, try this: about a minute before you are at a satisfactory rare, place steaks within 1/2″ of the heat for that last minute char. ↩

Tags:

Feb132011February 13, 2011February 13, 20115Commentsby Tony Hunt

Marsala Sauce (Tony-Style)

Posted in Randomosity...

Well, I went out on a limb tonight and did a little experimenting…in Marsala sauce. Anyhow, I wanted something with a little more surprise than the gravy most of us end up getting at restaurants.

One of the reasons you get such a gravy-ish sauce in restaurants is the use of stock in making the sauce. My experiment was mainly centered around ditching old water used to boil beef/fish/chicken, mainly because that’s exactly what I am thinking every time I find out “stock” is part of a recipe.

This should only take around 15 minutes if you’re a hustler in the kitchen.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil 1
1/2 cup purple onions (diced or minced) 2
10-12oz mushrooms (sliced) 3
4-6 tablespoons rye flour 4
1 cup Marsala wine 5
6 toes of garlic (minced) 6
3 tablespoons butter 7
1-2 cups water 8
2 tablespoons black pepper 9
2 tablespoons salt 10

Instructions
The olive oil goes on a saucepan set to medium. Get the onions, garlic and mushrooms sizzling in there. Once the onions and mushrooms are soft, sprinkle the flour evenly over the mix. A couple minutes later, add in the wine, water, butter, salt, and pepper. Stir thoroughly. Continue to let it cook until you get the consistency you like out of it (will not take long).

What to use it on.
Chicken – If you can bake a few chicken breasts this is perfect for them. I personally like a little rosemary, thyme, and oregano on mine in this case.
Beef – this stuff is taking the ever-popular sauteed mushrooms and onions for steak and takes it to the next level. Although it works incredibly well on hamburger patties (not joking)
Shrimp – This is a driving factor in the experiment. Grill up some shrimp basted in butter, garlic and oregano. YUM!

So anyhow, if you try this please let me know how it went and if you tried anything different 😉

Happy Cookin’

-Tony

Show 10 footnotes

  1. Real simple, use extra-virgin olive oil wherever possible, for for lots of reasons, but I’ll simply say it’s better for you, far cleaner, and doesn’t involve any crazy additives. ↩
  2. The onions make for a better texture for many people when they are minced. More often that not I’ve found that goobs the don’t like onions are usually just have a far bigger problem with the thought that with the taste of them. ↩
  3. You can leave the mushrooms whole by they simply don’t cook as well that way, slicing them lets them cook far faster. ↩
  4. I like rye flour because I am often a pretentious asshat in the kitchen and very set in my ways…but I like the taste it brings far more than the bleached stuff everyone else uses. ↩
  5. If you’re spooked by Marsala wine, you can get away with a large number of different things, just use your head though, Marsala wines are very broad in flavor. You can find an absolute TON of substitutes on LoveToKnow (link here). ↩
  6. There is just no topping fresh garlic toes, I do suggest a mincing machine though…takes all the work out of doing it by hand. ↩
  7. Don’t use fake butter. If there is only margarine in the casa, don’t bother. Fake stuff doesn’t work. ↩
  8. Knowing you used filtered water for this endeavor will actually make me sleep better at night, just sayin’. ↩
  9. There is nothing like freshly ground pepper. Try it against that crap in a can…you’ll see. ↩
  10. If you absolutely have to cook with salt, do it with the best. Sea salt only has a tiny fraction of sodium compared to the table crap we’re fed normally. If you are a salt-lovin’ fool, I highly recommend this for you, it will keep you from keeling over from the sodium overkill. ↩

Tags:

1 2

  • Funny Shit Friends Say:

    A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

    — Robert Frost

  • Tagged Stuff

    google education Tony Hunt Tony tony is a dork tonytown.com Rants Randomosity... Youtube tonytown @Tony_Hunt Prose government sheeple Work Amtgard twitter No More Stupid vacation Tony's Music blog Being Libra... freedom Hell Dancing with Death... Everyone TED Geek Stupid business

  • Recent Posts

  • Old Rants