Walnut-Gorgonzola-Stuffed Portabellas

Yesterday, Joef had a walnut-gorgonzola-stuffed portabella in the "cafeteria" at work (I use quotation marks because it's really so much more than a cafeteria...amazing, fresh, local food - and all at cost. But I digress.), and today, he made them at home, using his own recipe! OK, so I gave him a really hard time at the grocery store ("You want to mix what...with what?"), and boy, was I proven wrong. This turned out wonderfully. Very rich, and very good. It was the kind of meal where after my first two bites, I worried that it wasn't going to be enough to satisfy my typically insatiable hunger, and two bites later, I was in a food coma. In a good way.

So, here is Joef's recipe:
Two portabella mushrooms
Olive oil
Onion salt
3 cloves garlic

STUFFING
3 oz crumbled gorgonzola cheese
3 oz walnuts, ground in a food processor

DRESSING/SALAD
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Stone-ground mustard
Baby spring green salad mix

Preheat the oven to 400. Clean the mushrooms by removing the gills, then hand wash and pat dry. Crush the garlic and mix it with olive oil and onion salt to taste, then brush the mushrooms with that mixture, both top and bottom. Set aside.

Combine the gorgonzola and the crushed walnuts together in a food processor, and blend, scraping down the sides as necessary until they're mixed together.

Put the walnut-gorgonzola blend into the hollowed-out sides of the portabellas, and place in the oven on a baking sheet. Cook until the mushrooms have softened, the cheese is melty, and, ideally, the cheese begins to brown on top. (This time, we added the cheese at the very end, and it melted, but didn't get browned. So we're recommending adding it earlier. Maybe you'd want to broil it?)

While the mushrooms are cooking, make a salad dressing from vinegar, olive oil, and a little stone-ground mustard (more oil, less vinegar). Drizzle to taste over salad greens in a bowl.

When the mushrooms are ready, take them out of the oven, place them on the greens, and serve!

And, there's a beer pairing: "I like that I paired a heavy meal with a heavy beer!", says Joef. This is Dragon's Milk, by New Holland Brewing, an oak-aged ale. 10% ABV, very dark with hints of vanilla.


And a final post-script: Joef gave me my birthday presents last night...oh, just about two and half weeks early. I'm so excited, I have to share them...yup, more cookbooks=more recipes, and that glove and the knife mean...oysters! So, a taste of things to come.