Couscous and sausage stuffed mushrooms

My meals have been less than inspired lately. It's been difficult for me because not only does Tara have the dietary restrictions due to her Porphyria, but she's pretty picky, too; top that off with the fact that she's still recovering from jaw surgery and you could understand my frustration. Soooo, we've been eating lots of pastas and cobbled together meals of leftovers.

Mark Bittman to the rescue! The NYT recently re-shared Bittman's Top 101 Head Starts on the Day from 2009.  I found so many ideas that I ended up making my own list of favorites.  Expect to see some of them in upcoming posts.  

A few things:

First, I normally have a loooong turn around time from cooking/eating a recipe to blogging about it.  Not this dish.  I made it just a few days ago and it was so good that I had to post about it as soon as possible.  Plus, it's perfect for Thanksgiving.

Second, HUGE apologies for the bad quality of photos.  I was working with the double whammy of my iPhone and bad lighting.  Normally, I wouldn't blog a recipe if the pictures looked like these, but Tara loved this dish, so I had to share. Again, it was that good!

Third, Bittman doesn't give very detailed instructions, so I kinda had to wing it as far as writing the recipe.

Couscous and sausage stuffed mushrooms
Adapted from Mark Bittman, via The New York Times (#39)

I changed a few things in the "recipe" based on what was on hand and how much time I had.  Mainly, I used couscous instead of rice, a shallot instead of onion and garlic, and a mixture of Fontina and Gruyere cheese instead of the Parmesan.  In the spirit of the recipe, I didn't measure, so take the ingredient amounts as a guide rather than an absolute, especially with the couscous, bread crumbs and cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 8 oz button, cremini, or portobello mushrooms
• 2 smallish mild Italian sausages, removed from casings and crumbled
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
• ~ 3/4 cup cooked couscous
• 1 egg
• ~ 1/4 cup soy free bread crumbs (I used Ian's Panko.)
• ~ 1/4 cup of grated cheese

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Add oil to a large skillet over medium heat.  Cook the sausage until it begins to brown. While the sausage is cooking, trim mushrooms and chop stems (do this first if you're not confident in your speedy kitchen skills).

When the sausage starts to brown, add stems, chopped onion, and garlic (if using).  Stir often.  (Time saving tip: Grate your cheese while waiting for the mixture to cook.)  When the mixture is cooked, remove from heat and transfer to a bowl.  Add cooked couscous, egg, bread crumbs, and cheese. The mixture should stick together a little bit, so feel free to add cheese and bread crumbs as needed.

Spoon the stuffing into the mushroom caps (and ramekins for the extra mixture) and bake until tender, about 15 minutes.

Vegetarian option:  Increase the mushrooms to 12-16oz.  Dice half and cook with the stems.  Season with black pepper and fennel.  

Onion free and garlic free option:  Replace the shallot and garlic with 1-2 stalks of diced celery.

Shrimp and mushroom couscous

I've been making some serious headway into cleaning out the "pantry."  The only problem is that Tara keeps requesting new stuff to eat!  Poor girl!  She normally gets bored of foods pretty quickly and, now that she's limited to liquid and super soft foods on top of the restrictions for Porphyria, she's been trying anything possible to vary up her diet.  We have almost every variety of soup available at the local stores - but all that has done is reinforce why we're not soup people...  It's been interesting - and a little frustrating, truth be told - but we're making do.  On the plus side, she's lost a good amount of weight (~15 pounds as of last weigh in), but due to her curbed activity level, she hasn't had any AIP symptoms!  We're hoping to use this as a jump start to further weight loss when she gets better.  I'll definitely keep y'all posted as that is generally not an easy thing to do with Porphs.

In any event, this meal was a total pantry cleaner.  I used some shrimp that was in the freezer for a while, a white/whole wheat couscous mix purchased from the bulk bins at Whole Foods, and some homemade mushroom stock for the liquid.  While I love the simplicity of the flavors, it might be a little bland for some.  Feel free to play around with seasonings or fresh herbs to up the flavor profile.

Shrimp and mushroom couscous
Serves 4

I like my mushrooms on the crispy side so I sauteed them separately, but you could just as easily cook them together and only dirty one pot.  I'll give directions for both methods.  Also, Tara and I like to have quite a few shrimp per serving, so adjust accordingly for your needs.

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat and/or white couscous
• 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock or water
• 8 oz (or more) mushrooms, sliced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled
• 1 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste, optional
• Salt and pepper to taste 
• Optional: skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes

Directions

Heat the broiler (or toaster oven) until hot and put the rack as close to the heat source as possible.

Cooking the mushrooms and couscous separately:

Heat a large skillet over med - med/high heat.  Once the pan is hot, add 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil.  After the oil has heated, add the butter and cook until it has foamed. Add the mushrooms, stir to coat, and season with salt and pepper.  Saute the mushrooms in the butter-oil mixture until they are slightly crispy, about 10-15 minutes.

While the saute pan is heating, bring the vegetable stock to boil in a medium pot.  After the liquid has boiled, pour in the couscous, cover and turn off the heat.  Let white couscous stand for 5 minutes, whole wheat for 10.  Fluff with a fork before serving.

Cooking the mushrooms and couscous together:

Follow the directions for sauteing the mushrooms above.  Put the couscous in the pan, stirring to coat with the oil and begins to toast, 3 to 5 minutes.  Add the broth and bring to a boil, then cover and turn off the heat.  Let stand for 15 minutes.  Fluff with a fork before serving. 

After you've started both the mushrooms and couscous, coat the shrimp with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Broil the shrimp, turning once, for 2 to 3 minutes per side.  (As you can see from the pictures, I used skewers for this.  They're not required, but it makes turning a little easier.) (Also, if you look at the pictures, you'll see a sort of coating on the shrimp; I was experimenting with some ground pepitas/pumpkin seeds.  It didn't work very well, which is why I didn't include it in the recipe.  If you do want to add some crunch, include roasted pumpkin seeds just towards the end of the cooking.)

To serve, mix the mushrooms and couscous together and top with the shrimp.