What to make for dinner?

All day I pondered this. For lunch I knew I was having ooey gooey deep dish pizza with Daniel and Richie. It was fabulous! And so was the company ;) Still, after that I decided I wanted something light for dinner. At first I was thinking soup...it was kind of gross outside and soup seemed like a good idea. But I couldn't decide what kind. I wanted a vegetarian meal too...So as I was walking into the store to get lettuce, because I knew I wanted salad, my Mom suggested just making a big salad and getting french bread. Perfect! So I headed to the produce section to see what might catch my eye for the salad: I got red leaf lettuce and romaine to go with some things I already had at home. Then some portabellini mushrooms caught my eye! Perfect size for stuffing and there were 6 of them. Perfect for 2!

Here are the mushrooms before baking:


You can stuff these with anything. Bacon and cream cheese, crab meat and bread crumbs...anything. Tonight I used: 2 marinated pieces of artichoke heart, about 2 tbsp of finely chopped onion, 1/2 tbsp of cream cheese, 4 tbsp of parmesan cheese, and about 4 tbsp of bread crumbs. I mixed and mashed everything together in a bowl and added just a drop or two of olive oil for moisture. I scooped out the "gills" of the mushrooms and brushed the tops off with a damp paper towel then filled each one with the cheese mixture. With the oven heating to 450 I popped them in for about 15 minutes. The finished product, as you can see below, will be a little wrinkly, with nicely browning tops. They might even be bubbling.


My salad had a creamy cheddar cheese in it, roasted red pepper, marinated artichoke, cucumber, carrots...but hey, it's a salad, throw in whatever you want!