All Entries Tagged With: "Mushroom"
Polenta with Smoky Mushroom Ragout
The South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors meets again for their forthrightly cooking fun. I envied these group of seniors who are filled with enthusiasm and making full use of their retirement. They enjoy cooking, gardening and each others company.
For this week’s cooking session, Charlene picked four recipes from Cooking Light. The seniors are very careful with their food intake and they practice healthy eating. The first recipe is Polenta with Smoky Mushroom Ragout. To our surprise, this dish turns out to resembles lasagne.
The polenta in this recipe is baked in the oven, as opposed to using the traditional method of stovetop cooking. This method frees you from constantly stirring the polenta and you can prepare the mushroom topping while the polenta is in the oven.
This recipe serves 8.
Ingredients
Polenta:
- 6 cups water
- 1 1/2 cups dry polenta
- 1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Ragout:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cups chopped onion
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 8 cups sliced oyster mushroom caps (about 1 1/2 pounds)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup red wine
- 1 tablespoon chopped drained canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 (28 oz) can whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
- 1 1/2 cup (6 oz) crumbled queso fresco cheese, feta, or goat cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
Polenta, at its most basic, is boiled cornmeal mush, a cousin of grits. Popular in northern Italy, it can be served as a starch to be topped with sauces, or as an accompaniment to meats. Once chilled, it becomes firm and can be sliced and grilled, fried, or layered in casseroles and baked dishes.
Composed primarily of carbohydrates, it is low in fat and a good option for a gluten-free side dish. Many polenta recipes call for copious amounts of butter and cheese, as polenta by itself is very bland, so exercise good judgement while cooking.
Here in Canada, you can use cornmeal to make polenta. The smaller the grind, the quicker it cooks. Traditional Italian polenta is quite coarse, and can take between 20 to 40 minutes of stirring on the stovetop. Cooking for less time results in grains that are more distinct; the longer cooking time results in a creamier consistency.
You can also make polenta using a microwave which I had blogged before here.
Mushroom and Spinach Frittata with Smoked Gouda
Someone in the South Arm Cooking Club for seniors suggested to have one cooking session for making brunch. It was a great idea and the organizers (Stella, Minoo and Charlene) came up with a few brunch recipes. Stella also handed out an article on how breakfast may improve memory in healthy elderly for the seniors to read. In this article, a study of 22 men and women 61 to 79 years of age, researchers observed improved performance on memory test 15 minutes after ingestion of pure protein, pure fat or pure carbohydrate beverages following an overnight test, as compared with scores achieved after ingestion of a placebo beverage containing no energy. This study shows that memory may be enhanced by eating any type of breakfast – regardless of whether it is comprised of protein, fat or carbohydrate.
Stella, as a coordinator of South Arm’s seniors, has hands on experience on this matter. Among one of the members in South Arm’s seniors group, Stella noticed a big difference in one of the senior’s performance at certain days. She found that the day this particular senior had a good breakfast, her performance improved on that day.
The first brunch item the seniors made was Mushroom and Spinach Frittata with Smoked Gouda. Frank and Karen made this Frittata. Here we go again with Frank slicing up onions again. Frank seemed to be doing a lot of slicing onions and mincing garlic in the community kitchen.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 2 cups sliced mushrooms
- 4 cups packed baby spinach leaves or torn Swiss chard
- 8 large eggs
- 1/2 cup shredded smoked Gouda cheese, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Danish Glazed Mushrooms
Since Joan and Paul complete their first recipe so quickly, they have time to do a second recipe. The second recipe is Danish Glazed Mushrooms from recipezaar. The recipe was originally submitted for the 2005 World Tour by Justcallmetoni.
The Danish Glazed Mushroom can be served as a hot appetizer or side dish. This dish is very fragrant with herbs.
Ingredients
- 1 lb mushroom cap
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 garlic cloves (chopped)
- 1 green onion (chopped)
- 3 tablespoons fresh parsley (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon fresh dill weed (chopped)
- 2 teaspoons basil (chopped)
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