Modern Stuffed Mushrooms, Paleo Vegan and Heathy

This version of stuffed mushrooms may reframe them in your mind as a still relevant modern foodstuff. Begone ubiquitous cheese and breadcrumb appetizer. You will find neither here.

I love mushrooms, they naturally test as close to meat as any vegetable ever gets. Full of earthy umami taste and juice which makes us salivate for more.

I think the tradition of stuffing one food with another is very silly. I just don't get it. Stuffed peppers, squash, mushrooms. In Ottolenghi's Jerusalem there is a whole chapter titled "stuffed" about stuffed turnips, carrots, and other traditional delicacies. It have never understood why the stuffing and the stuffie are better off this way than if they were all in a pot together.  Can somebody explain?

Which brings me back to stuffed mushrooms, which I made on a whim, out of character, since I don't do stuffed things. They are fun because they stay juicy and come out in a round meatball-like shape. And everybody loves food in balls, this is a fact. Maybe this love is related to stuffed veggies?

These guys are not fussy, it would be easy to mess around with the recipe if you don't like parsley or some part, just replace it. I threw a little bit of cheese into a few of them to see if it made a big difference. It didnt. Cheese is yummy, so if you of your guests are in the mood for cheese, some grated parmesan or the like would be a good addition. But these guys are about the flavor of the mushroom, onion and sage. The wine adds complexity.

Modern Stuffed Mushrooms

20 ounces whole baby bella mushrooms (2 long grocery store containers)

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/3 cup small diced red onion

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon dried sage. (more if using fresh)

1 teaspoon dried thyme

4 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup dry white wine 

1 teaspoon salt

fresh ground black pepper

With your fingers, pop the stems off of the mushroom caps. Reserve the stems in a pile. Place the caps upside-down on a baking pan. (I lined mine with parchment paper hoping for easy cleanup, it helped a little bit, but not much actually.) 

Discard any yucky or old bits of the stems. Mince the mushroom stems finely. Put them in a bowl. Chop parsley, and red onion into pieces that are as small as the mushroom pieces. Mince garlic, add garlic, thyme and sage to the mixture. Sage works magic with mushrooms.

Add the salt, pepper, olive oil and white wine. Mix it all together well, look at how colorful! Follow your instincts, if you want more olive oil, do it! More sage, do it! The wine adds moisture and flavor, the mixture should feel moist but not wet, there should not be a puddle of liquid in the bowl. If there is, just distribute it into the mushroom caps at the end. 

Fill the mushroom caps with stuffing. This is accomplished best, messily, with a spoon and hands. There should be enough for all the mushroom caps. Try to get the stuffing to stay inside and on top to make a round mushroom! 

Bake in a preheated oven at 350° for about an hour, until they are done. Dark brown, tender, juicy, crispy bits on top. They will look like this:

Serve hot for best wow-factor. They store for a week in the fridge. And they reheat super well! (Even as I did over an open fire on a recent camping trip.)

Roast Sweets and Scapes

Garlic scapes roasted along with sweet potatoes become a veggie dish with infused flavor and nuance.

Fresh garlic scapes

Roasting with oil caramelizes the flavor of garlic scapes. They softened, as did the garlicy bite.

The flower bulbs transformed into amazing creations. The outside crispy and salty, the inside soft, succulent, pungent and nearly sweet.

I find, when roasting sweet potatoes, olive oil tastes the best, but other higher temperature oils like sunflower or peanut oil will crisp and color up the outsides better. I drizzle on some of each for the best of both worlds.

garlic scapes and sweet potatoes ready to roast

Sweet potatoes and garlic scapes

Roast Sweets and Scapes


5 garlic scapes
4 medium sweet potatoes
olive oil
peanut oil (or sunflower)
sea salt


Dice sweet potatoes into 1 inch chunks.
slice garlic scapes into 1/4" pieces. Leave the top bulb intact.

Roast Sweets and Scapes

Place potatoes and scapes onto a roasting tray.

Drizzle equally generous amounts of olive oil and peanut oil on the tray. Sprinkle liberally with sea salt. Toss it all by hand to coat in oil.

Cook in a 350° oven for 30 minutes, or until the sweet potato has softened through.  Toss the potatoes once towards the end of cooking to crisp all sides.

Enjoy hot or at room temperature. 4-6 servings as a side dish.

Chive Blossom Vinegar

When faced with thousands of beautiful chive blossoms I think, what do we do with them? They make pretty garnishes on plates, and whimsical additions to salad when torn up.

The couple who run Maitland Mountain Farm in Salem have a lot of chives. They are sold at markets, used in flower arrangements. Chives also act as practical landscaping on the farm, maybe keeping away some insects or bunny rabbits, and most definitely serving as erosion prevention where they are planted. 

In the spring they come up with loads of spherical purple blossoms. 

We made a large batch of infused vinegar, nice to make oniony salad dressings for fresh greens. And, it's bright pink.

Chive Blossom Vinegar

Chive blossoms

White vinegar 

A wide container with a lid

A fine strainer

Nice clean jars to store the vinegar. 

Pick blossoms by spreading your fingers and running them through the chives, catching the blossoms. They will pop off the stalks to be caught in a fist. 

Wash the blossoms gently, bobbing up and down in a bowl of water. Or in my case, a huge sink. 

Strain blossoms, drip dry or spin in a lettuce spinner. 

Put the clean blossoms in a container where they fill up roughly 2/3 of the volume. Pour white vinegar in, to the top. Float a plate, or something, atop the flowers to keep them submerged, they will try to rise up and escape. Or, just put the lid on. 

Leave vinegar and chive blossoms together for 4 days to steep. It will turn bright pink and then a deeper magenta hue will develop. Keep covered well or you kitchen will smell strongly of onions. 

When the time has come to strain the entire project set up your fine strainer over a vessel to catch the strained vinegar. Use a funnel if you need to. I had to strain mine twice because the first strainer I chose filtered out the blossoms but not the tiny white seeds which float around. And the seeds look like wee insects if you didn't know what they were...so it's worth getting out a cheesecloth or a tea strainer for this case. 

Now you have plenty of jewel colored vinegar which is crystal clear. Put in pretty jars or mix up into salad dressing with olive oil. I'll put a recipe on here soon.