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January 13, 2008
Mushrooms
I happen to like those cheap plain white mushrooms a lot. I've been eating them in brewers yeast soups to up my B vitamins. I'm very glad to hear that the vegetarian Danny California would eat mushrooms all the time if he could because at least I can stop worrying about his B vitamin intake. Some B vitamins anyhow.
Anyhow, here's a first shot at a simple, easy mushroom soup that has 56 grams of protein!
100 grams each: portabella, white and shiitake mushrooms
10 calories worth of veggie broth
200 grams eggwhites (cooked, broken down so he won't really notice them in the soup)
185 g Quorn tenders. He's never had Quorn, and is about to fall in love with it.
After heating, add 1/2 cup of Butterworks Farms organic nonfat plain yogurt, to make it slightly creamy and add a bit of a bite. I can do this in the office, we have a fridge and microwave.
That's just 400 calories. Plenty of room leftover for more veggies, some more fat, etc. My strategy is to stuff him with as much protein as I can get into him at one meal, hoping it will make up for the lack of protein in the rest of his diet. If only we could give him IV eggwhites. He has plenty of fat in his diet, unfortunately much of it from frying things, but he's definitely not an Ornish refugee like I was. I may do something with brussels sprouts for a side dish, just simple, maybe a bit of fresh lemon and a dash of cider vinegar and dried chipoltle peppers. I could marinate the sprouts all day before cooking them, and then just throw them in the microwave to lightly steam right before eating them. Wow, I may even feed myself this stuff, it sounds good! And I will definitely make enough for the rest of the stafff. The organizing staff, that is. I can't afford mushrooms for the entire organization. Do the girls like brussels sprouts?
I'm going to test this out today on both MR and myself to decide how to spice it. I find that mushrooms, when cooked in a bit of unsalted broth, are so powerful that they don't really need a lot of flavoring, so I may just leave them to speak for themselves. Or perhaps a tiny dash of vegetarian Worschtershire (we have it from Whole Foods) or just a tiny dash of garlic Tabasco. Something so small that it's indetectable but it kicks up the recipe just a bit.
I've never been a complicated cook... I don't have the patience, and I mostly believe that you should buy good veggies and then just let them be. Mushrooms are the kind of things that can easily overpower other ingredients, but I find it's also possible to drown them out with too many spices. So a balance is necessary.
After we went out to Horizons, a really fancy vegan restaurant in Center City, DC brought home a mushroom dish to one of his housemates. Apparently the housemate identified every mushroom before eating it. These are serious mushroom people. I wish I had access to some fancier mushrooms for this project. We are right near the mushroom capitol of the world, but DC says that the mushroom festival was rather disappointing.
Anyway, I'll do the best I can. If it doesn't work out, I'll hop a train to Boston (which is what I always do when things don't work out) and Robin will feed me kale until I recover my self-esteem.
Posted by april at January 13, 2008 2:20 AM
Comments
Danny and his housemate could very well be Umami-addicts. I've read that there are certain people who have a heightened appreciation for the elusive 5th taste sensation.
Posted by: Helen at January 13, 2008 3:06 PM
i love mushrooms!!!! Thanks for the information. i will take this in mind when i order my food from Celebrity Foods I will re-post with a mushroom recipe of mine!
Posted by: jordan at January 16, 2008 7:54 PM