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 :) 

Happy Herbivore Meal Plans

Portobello Verde Tacos from Happy Herbivore's weekly meal plans. Around 320 calories, 12 grams of fat, 46 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein for all this. These tacos are extremely satisfying; I could eat them every day!

This week I finally got around to starting Happy Herbivore's Meal Plans. The reason I say "got around to it" is because I purchased a year subscription back in September and have been printing out the meal plans and saving them for when I was ready. I follow Happy Herbivore on Facebook, and I enjoy making the recipes she shares. 

You might be thinking why didn't I buy one of her cookbooks, but I really wanted to follow the meal plans. I just didn't have the will power. You see, her meal plans consist of daily meals and snacks that by the end of the day equal 1,200 calories. Plus, she very, very rarely uses ingredients with oil or added fat in them (she avoids cooking oils, vegan mayo, fake and processed products, etc.). 

How the heck do you cook onions without oil -- was my first thought. How do you enjoy salad without dressing? 

This Mexican Rice Soup had a nice crunch from the veggies and hints of sweetness from the corn. My dish wasn't a soup because I didn't cook the brown rice with the veggies, which required broth or water. I had made rice the other night, so I added the already cooked brown rice to the pan once the veggies were done cooking. Oh, and when you cook onions or any other veggie, just layer the pan with a little broth or water instead of oil. Worked just fine! Half this pan is one serving and contains 388 calories, 20 grams of fat (which comes from the avocado, but I omitted that, so the dish was virtually fat-free), 46 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fiber, and 9 grams of protein.

I started a plant-based lifestyle back in January 2013 for animal welfare and my health. I love being vegan and have no desire to ever eat animal products again. Since January 2013, I've lost 15 pounds, but the weight-loss has stopped there. I've read so many wonderful testimonials about how Happy Herbivore's Meal Plans have helped people lose massive amounts of weight. I would cheer for those individuals she'd highlight on a weekly basis, but I never took the final step of following the plan myself. Until Monday...

I definitely love to add salt and a pinch of sugar here and there to my dishes. I also add oil to any pan I put on the stove. Since Monday, I haven't cooked anything with oil, nor have I added any sugar or much salt (very small pinch here and there when I used water instead of broth in a recipe). I have so much energy! I usually feel sluggish in the afternoon and often turn to coffee or tea for a small pick-me-up. I haven't needed anything like that since starting this meal plan.

I thought this Curried Red Lentil Soup was going to be so bland because the recipe doesn't call for salt, but the broth I used added enough sodium. Plus, the curry and cumin spices elevated the dish. But what made the soup so comforting was the chopped celery. I felt like a little kid eating mom's home-cooked soup on a school night. There's just something about cooked celery... My husband, who usually finds anything without a gallon of hot sauce on it bland, raved about this soup. I added a few dashes of sriracha of course, but he didn't find the soup lacking in flavor at all. 2-1/4 cups of this soup has 389 calories, 1 gram of fat, 69 grams of carbs, 31 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 25 grams of protein. 

I even ate a salad yesterday without dressing....yup, no dressing! I filled a big bowl with chopped lettuce, some celery, and then I splashed the juice of one lime over the salad and added hot sauce (a little too much hot sauce, so I had to kind of eat around the hot lettuce leaves). 

Did you know you can enjoy salad without oil? I sure didn't. This salad is dressed with lime juice and hot sauce. It was delicious. This wasn't on the meal plan, but I was craving a salad. I looked at what was used for a dressing on another meal-plan salad recipe and used that to top the lettuce and celery in the bowl. 

The salad was amazing. Even my husband asked what new dressing I bought. I told him it was lime juice and hot sauce. He just blinked at me and then continued to shovel the salad into his mouth. 

There's definitely been an adjustment. I'm still getting used to eating rolled oats without salt or sugar (I'm allowed to add fresh/frozen fruit), but my views on eating are changing, which I'm so happy about. I don't need oil or fake or processed foods for flavor, and I'm loving the simplicity of these healthy, tasty recipes.

The quantities, too, have been amazing. Because the dishes are low calorie, the portions are sometimes so large I have to eat some of it later. I also like that Happy Herbivore -- aka Lindsay Nixon -- encourages you to customize to your tastes. So, if you want fewer carbs, swap out the grains for greens. If you need more bulk, add more veggies. 

And some other good news -- since Monday I've lost 1 to 2 pounds. I have an old scale that's not digital, but the needle is definitely pointing to a lower number than it was on Monday. 

I'll keep you posted on my progress. I definitely see good things ahead!