Recipe: Baked Portobello Mushroom Caps with Tahini

The assembled mushroom caps: toppings include sliced garlic, chopped green onions, tomatoes, and tahini.

These baked mushroom caps burst with bold flavors and are a favorite dinner item in my household. Serve with a side of quinoa or rice, as well as some fresh pineapple chunks.

Baked Portobello Mushroom Caps with Tahini

Ingredients:
Portobello Mushroom Caps (I like to keep most of the stem and the gills)
2-3 green onions (scallions), chopped
1 garlic clove per mushroom cap (thinly slice each clove)
1-2 tomatoes (a few chopped pieces per mushroom cap)
salt and pepper
Other favorite seasonings: I used Italian seasonings and onion powder
Tahini (ground sesame seeds; I find tubs/jars of tahini near the peanut butter at the store)
Organic sweet chili sauce or a vegan liquid sweetener of choice

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a baking dish. Take a paper towel and brush off the tops of the mushroom caps to remove any dirt. I don't recommend washing the mushrooms because they absorb water.

Place the mushroom caps on the baking dish gill-side up. Sprinkle with a pinch a salt on each cap. Add sprinkles of your favorite seasonings, such as Italian herbs or onion powder, etc.

Spoon about 1T of sweet chili sauce or other liquid sweetener on the mushroom. If you want to use organic sugar or coconut sugar, just use a generous pinch around the mushroom.

Next, layer your toppings: I lay the sliced garlic around the mushroom stem, then the tomatoes, and then the green onions.

Finally, I spoon about 1T of tahini around the mushroom stem.

Bake the mushrooms for 25 minutes. The mushrooms get slightly tender, darker, and soak up all the flavors from the toppings. The tahini adds a slightly bitter taste that compliments the savory essence of the mushroom. The seasonings, tomatoes, garlic, and green onions add punches of flavor, enticing aromas, and slight crunches here and there. As you slice the mushroom over your rice and pineapple, you get a nice mix of sweet, savory, tangy, bitter, and salty tastes.

These veggie steaks are filling and delicious.

I baked my mushrooms with some asparagus that I sprinkled with salt and a few drops of olive oil.

These cooked mushroom caps (above and below) are from other times I made this recipe. My husband and I ate the other mushrooms pictured on the baking sheet before I could take photos -- we were hungry :) 

Recipe and Review: Pesto using Parmela’s Parmesan-Style Aged Nut Cheese

Good things come in small packages. 

I was always intrigued by pesto. All the celebrity chefs were making it on their shows, and I loved how green it was and how fresh it looked because of how quick it was made using simple ingredients. 

I never tasted or made pesto prior to becoming plant-based (I know, hard to believe, but I just stuck to tomato- and cream-based sauces). But that all changed when I came across Parmela’s Parmesan-Style Aged Nut Cheese.

I was thinking of different ways to use the product other than sprinkling it on homemade pizzas. So I thought I'd give pesto a try.

Parmela's Parmesan has a nutty, cheesy flavor that comes from the cashews and nutritional yeast. The texture is medium to fine course, and I find that it has a slight zing as an aftertaste (maybe from the fermented soybeans).

A lot of vegans simply use nutritional yeast when they want a Parmesan-like cheese. I don’t mind the taste of nutritional yeast (or nooch, as it’s sometimes called), but I don’t like to flavor my pesto with it. My pesto tastes bland and unappealing with it.

I’ve read some reviews online from people who don’t particularly care for Parmela’s. The reviewers don’t mention how they apply Parmela’s Parmesan, so I’m not sure what their issue with the product is. I’ll admit, I don’t notice the flavor of this nut-cheese product too much when sprinkled on a finished dish, but my dishes often feature robust spices and strong ingredients that can easily overpower this subtle cheese alternative.

But in my pesto, which is sweet, fragrant, and mild, this product adds body and nutty, cheesy notes that make me want to keep eating it.

Pesto

Ingredients:

2 cups of loosely packed basil

1/3 cup of pine nuts (toast them in a pan for a couple minutes, tossing frequently, until they darken slightly and give off an aroma)

3 cloves of garlic

1/3 c of Parmela’s Parmesan

1/3 c to 2/3 c of olive oil, depending on how runny you want the sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Put everything into a food processor – except the salt and pepper – and blend until mixed thoroughly. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking. Blend again and taste.

This is how my pesto looks with 2/3 cup of olive oil. 

I'm about to boil some organic whole wheat spaghetti.

Finish off your plate of pasta with a sprinkle of Parmela's and a splash of fresh lemon juice.

Recipe: Mom's Halushka Goes Vegan

Halushka is an example of a non-vegan recipe that had emotional ties to me. The flavors and textures with this dish, which was cooked often by my mother, were always comforting – the sweet, tender noodles; the wilted cabbage; the salt and garlic flavors over the pan-fried protein. 

I remember how proud my mom was to serve this dish to her family as well as neighbors and at potlucks. It was always well-received. Well, I definitely don’t miss the animal protein, but that’s easily remedied with Viana’s Smoked Veggie Frankfurters. My vegan dish that was inspired by my mom’s Halushka recipe achieves everything that the original does without the Kielbasa.  

My mom’s recipe was very garlic heavy, which I loved, so don’t be surprised with how much garlic is in this recipe.

Ingredients:

¼ c. of vegan buttery spread

1 onion sliced thinly

4-5 cloves of garlic sliced thinly

1/4 c of garlic powder, divided

4 links of Viana’s Smoked Veggie Frankfurters sliced into discs

One small or medium head of cabbage shredded

2 servings of cooked thick noodles (I used brown rice fettuccine-style noodles that I had in the pantry)

Salt, as needed

Optional ingredients that are not in my mom's original recipe: red chili flakes, chopped kale

Directions:

Cook the noodles according to the directions and set aside. Melt the buttery spread in a large pot, and add the sliced onions. Sautee for 5 minutes over medium heat and then add the sliced garlic, 2 T of garlic powder, and the sliced frankfurters. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the shredded cabbage and put a lid on the pot to help wilt the cabbage. You can lower the heat a little while you wait. Once you’re able to stir the mixture easily and the cabbage is nearly wilted (5-10 minutes), stir in the cooked pasta. Taste and add salt to your liking. I added the other 2 T of garlic powder at this point. Continue to stir the mixture so the noodles get incorporated throughout. Remove the pot from heat. 

You can leave the dish as-is, or you can add red chili flakes and/or one bunch of chopped kale. You can either incorporate the kale into the hot mixture in a separate large bowl or place the chopped kale on top of the hot mixture and put a lid on the pot. After several minutes, the steam and heat from the cooked food will make the kale easier to incorporate into the mixture. 

Viana's Smoked Veggie Frankfurters have a smooth consistency and a smoky, salami-like flavor.

I see stinky garlic breath in my future.

The perfect bite: a little kale, cabbage, noodle, and smoked sausage. I think my mom would be proud. Now I have a version of the recipe I can pass on to my son.