Veggie-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

I have decided to put my family back onto a healthy diet. I say "back", because I used to be very health conscious and strict with my diet and what I fed my kids. If it were just me, I would have never strayed, but a husband and picky kids broke me. By healthy I mean no dairy, sugar, red meat, and preservatives. The Marilu Henner Total Health Makeover. My daughter has always had a rash due in part to dairy (she was very allergic as a baby), so I am hoping the new diet will help clear her skin up.

I have slowly been weeding out the dairy and not buying it when we run out (This has taken a while since I have a deep freezer). Instead I have been buying alternatives like tofu sour cream, rice milk, veggie cheese slices, etc. My 11 year old son swore he would not eat anything with tofu in it, but when I used tofu instead of cottage cheese in my lasagna, he told me how much better it was. While he was eating seconds, I told him that he was eating tofu and he couldn't believe it.

So far I have been very good at making a menu for the week and sticking to it. I have already saved tons of money by doing this, since many nights I used to have my dh pick up something on his way home from work because I was not prepared. In the last 2 weeks I have also lost 5 lbs. just from not eating out.

I find that most of my recipes work just fine with this diet, after a few tweaks. Just this month I was looking at the Better Homes and Gardens magazine when I found a very healthy recipe that would work with our diet, after a couple of tweaks of course.

Veggie-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

This recipe sounded yummy to me, but because it was pretty much nothing but vegetables, I didn't think my kids would go for it. I prepared some chicken nuggets for when they started spitting out their vegetable stuffed mushrooms. However, I did not need the chicken nuggets since they loved this recipe and ate every last bite. Yes, this is the only thing I served for dinner and it filled us up. Portobello mushrooms are like meat and are very filling.

Ingredients:
•1 small yellow sweet pepper or half of a green
or red pepper cut into bite-size strips
•1 small red onion, chopped
•1 medium zucchini or yellow crookneck squash, shredded
•1 carrot, shredded
•1 stalk celery thinly sliced
•2 cloves garlic, minced
•2-3 T olive oil
•1 T fresh basil chopped
•1 T lemon juice
•1-2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach (or regular spinach torn up).
•1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs (I like to toast a piece of bread and put it in the food processor).
•1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
•4 large portobello mushroom caps, stems removed
•4 slices provolone or mozzarella cheese.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 F. Line a cookie sheet with foil or parchment. In a large skillet cook and stir pepper, onion, zucchini (or yellow squash), carrot, celery, and garlic in hot oil over medium-high heat for about 4 minutes.
Stir in basil, lemon juice and a dash of salt and ground black pepper. Top with spinach; cover and cook until spinach is wilted (about 2 minutes). Remove from heat and stir crumbs and half of the parmesan cheese into vegetable mixture; set aside.

Remove gills from mushrooms, if desired.
Arrange mushrooms, stem side up, on cookie sheet. Top each with a slice of cheese (I used my veggie cheese) and divide the vegetable mixture among mushroom caps. Bake 15 minutes. Top with remaining parmesan (I still had some left so I used it. Next time I will be using a veggie parmesan) and bake 2 more minutes or until heated through.

Click HERE for a printable version.

I was totally hooked on portobello mushrooms this week and am still craving them. Go to Julia's Hooked on Friday's to see what everyone else is hooked on this week.