Stuffed Mushrooms, Guacamole, Roasted Butternut Squash

I purchased, a few days ago, a box of eight large white "stuffer" mushrooms and decided to make stuffed mushrooms tonight. I also found avocadoes on sale a few days ago, and purchased a few - I used two to make guacamole using rosemary, my signature way of making it (it also has lime juice, salt, pepper, green onion, and garlic). I also had some roasted butternut squash with cranberries that I had purchased (prepared), and heated and served it.

To make the mushrooms, I used my thumb to remove the stem of each mushroom, then gently pulled off the loose mushroom skin reaching toward the now-open center. I saved the skin and stems, chopping the stems into small 1/8-1/4" cubes, and put the mushrooms into a pan of boiling water. I let the mushrooms cook for about five minutes till they softened a bit, then let them soak in cold water to stop the cooking.

In the meantime, I made what turned out to be an excellent stuffing. I chopped a clove of garlic into small pieces, about a third of a container of seitan into 1/4-3/8" cubes, two asparagus spears into about 3/8" lengths, half of a jalapeno pepper into thin strips, and two or three short green onion spears into 1/4" pieces. I put the garlic into a pan over medium heat as the olive oil started to get hot; once the garlic started sizzling a bit, I added the seitan. A few minutes later, I added the other ingredients and let them all cook for about 5 minutes till reasonably well done, then I mixed in about 1/2 teaspoon of fresh oregano leaves, a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, and a few pinches of jerk seasoning.

I patted dry the mushroom caps, over-filled them with the stuffing, and baked at 350°F for about 10 minutes, and served on a thin rice noodles that I had boiled. We both really enjoyed the meal!

---

I occasionally write about my 3 a.m. pasta dinner - what do you do when hungry friends show up and it's late at night? Last night I had a slightly earlier version of this issue; I picked up friends from the airport around midnight, and they hadn't eaten. Luckily, I had an extra pizza left from Saturday, and started it reheating. In the meantime, I roasted two ears of corn and quickly had tasty kernels of corn with Earth Balance, lime, and salt, for them. I served their pizza with salad, and served some blackberry cabernet sorbetto and vanilla bean frozen soy yogurt for dessert. It was almost 3 a.m. by the time we wrapped it up! I'm glad that I tend to always have a well-stocked kitchen and often have good leftovers ready to go.