Ingredients:
Enough Baby Bella mushrooms to cover the bottom of a pie pan
1 cup of prepared leftover stuffing, chopped or crumbled to make sure the pieces are small (mine was home-made but commercial stuffing is fine)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped CURLY parsley
1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper plus extra for sprinkling
Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
Pinch of pumpkin pie spice
One egg
Three ounces soft goat cheese
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Remove the stems from the mushrooms and place the caps upside down in a lightly oiled pie pan. Spray or rub them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Mix the stuffing, egg, lemon juice and zest, pie spice, salt and pepper, onions and parsley and one ounce of the goat cheese together. Begin stuffing the mushrooms by pressing just a small amount down in the cavity of each mushroom. Then distribute the rest of the filling evenly in little heaps on each mushroom.
Drizzle or spray the mushrooms with a little more olive oil and bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes. You want the tops to be brown and crunchy, but not burnt. Remove them from the oven and distribute the other two ounces of cheese on top, and put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes just before you serve them. Also just before serving, drizzle over them the the thickest, best-quality balsamic vinegar you can find, I like Mia Sorella.
These go nicely with a good Sonoma County red Zinfandel.
