Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

I'm cooking all vegetarian this week.  That is not to say that I'm going to eat vegetarian all week, but I've been cooking and consuming so much meat lately that I felt I should balance it out with more veggie dishes.  First up was some Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms from a Cooking Light recipe I found a while ago but never got around to trying.  It works well as an appetizer, a side dish, or even part of a main course.  I myself paired it with some red pepper pasta topped with homemade roasted red pepper and tomato sauce.  A very tasty, easy, and light meal.

Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Recipe courtesy of:
Cooking Light (get the recipe here)

Double Tomato Bruschetta

I had a few friends over for a gathering a couple weekends ago, and even though it was meant to be an ice cream social, I wanted to have appetizers on hand as well.  I talked about making sushi rolls for the first time in a while in my last post, and just in case that wasn't enough, or if they didn't turn out right, I thought I should have a backup of sorts. Besides, I was still trying to find ways to use all those overgrown basil from my patio!  So I decided to make bruschetta (which, as I recently learned, is actually pronounced "bru-sket-ta," believe it or not!), for the first time.  I knew it would be a bit risky to try something new when I'm trying to prepare for a party, but I didn't know what else to make, so bruschetta it was!

I searched the internet for a recipe, and one from AllRecipes.com looked particularly promising.  I thought the inclusion of sun-dried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar was creative and sounded just fabulous.  Besides, the near-perfect average rating of 4.8 out of 5 from 1491 people can't be a fluke, right?

The procedure is simple enough; the only trouble I had was making sure I got the bread out of the oven before it burned!  Oops!  Apparently I need some practice with using my broiler...  But, these bruschettas garnered RAVE reviews from my guests - even the ones with the burnt bread!  Someone even asked me for the recipe the next day.

This was definitely a 6 out of 5 star recipe, and something I'll be making again for sure!

Double Tomato Bruschetta

Recipe courtesy of:
AllRecipes (get the recipe here)