After a hectic work day, and an afternoon and evening packed with the boys’ activities, often the quickest route to a healthy dinner is a salad.
This one was inspired by a gorgeous Wild Mushroom Stroganoff I had at Great Sage, a local vegan restaurant in Clarksville, MD. my husband and I visited for date night a couple of weeks ago. The Great Sage mushroom stroganoff features portabella shitake, and crimini mushrooms with potato gnocchi in an herbed sauce. Served with an organic pinot noir, it was probably one of the best meals I’ve had in months, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. If you’d like to try it, you’ll need to head to Great Sage before 8 April, when they plan to debut their spring menu.
Since I can’t indulge in gnocchi every night, I thought I’d riff on the mushrooms, spinach, and herbs for this quick weeknight salad. It features some shitake mushrooms I had on hand, along with some really beautiful spinach and a pound of white mushrooms I purchased last weekend from the Breezy Willow Farm store. Breezy Willow’s store is an especially good resource during winter and early spring, since it’s open every Saturday from 10 to 2 year round. This week, in addition to my salad ingredients, I bought carrots, eggs, raspberry jam, lamb sausage, and chicken thighs. (Stay tuned for a recipe for lemony chicken thighs next week.)
Breezy Willow also hosts a thriving Community Supporting Agriculture program – they still have shares for 2014 – and starting in May, we hear they”ll be participating in a new artisan’s farmers’ market in downtown Ellicott City, MD. I can’t wait for all the sunny summer mornings to come.
Ingredients
- 2 lb fresh mushrooms cleaned
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 T. balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 T. butter cut into small pieces
- 3 T. minced parsley I used 1 T. dried parsley
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Toss the mushrooms with garlic, oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Spread out on baking sheet and place butter throughout mushrooms.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes and sprinkle with parsley before serving.
- Serve warm.
Although the heading of this post is misleading, the recipe as printed was served at Christmas snd I didn’t make enough. Everyone LOVED them. I did add a bit of dried thyme when they were roasting.
I had to reheat and that was fine but better fresh out of the oven. I also garnished with fresh dill. That was yummy as well. Thank you. Now this is a family tradition.