Stuffed "with goodness" Mushrooms

On October 12th the Canadian Thanksgiving occurred. My family doesn't celebrate the turkey day like most people. Since the only true Canadian in our home is our son we celebrate differently. I'm from the US and the hubby is from Portugal. Portugal doesn't have a Thanksgiving, but the US does but it's on the last Thursday of November (no where close to the Canadian one).

So as you can see why we celebrate differently than other people. I have decided that for the one we just recently had that I will do appetizers and such for the day. Seeing as this was a main part of Thanksgiving as I grew up, I figure it's a great way to split the days usual food up so half is for the Canadian in the family while the other half is for the American and the Portuguese can enjoy it all :).


One of the appetizers I love to make is stuffed mushrooms, and it's usually pretty healthy and a great hit with everyone (except my little one because he doesn't like mushrooms.... yet :) ). I like to use button mushrooms but this year I had gourmet brown mushrooms (they were on sale, 3 packages for $5 which means I grabbed 3 and ran before they changed their minds and jacked the price back up!)

These lovely little bites of yum can be stuffed with a number of things but this year I decided to do mine a little different than I have in the past. I had some ground pork which I mixed with ginger, sliced green onion (reserving the tops), diced garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. I also popped the mushroom stems out of the mushrooms, dicing them up and adding them to the meat mixture. The amount for each spice depends on your taste, these are supposed to be slightly Asian tasting (hence the ginger) but which ever taste is more to your liking work more of it in.

I let this mix sit in the fridge for about an hour before breaking it up and cooking it in a pan with a little sesame oil until the pork is cooked all the way through. I then put it all into a bowl and add in the sliced green tops of the green onion to the mix as well as about 2 tablespoons of light cream cheese. Take a small spoon and spoon the mixture into the mushroom caps in the crater left by the absent stems, over flowing is good as you should have plenty of filling to fill them all and then some.


Set the mushrooms in a baking dish and pre heat your oven to 350F. Let them bake for about 5-10 minutes, the tops should turn a golden brown and the mushrooms with wrinkle a little on the outside. Take out and let cool at least 5 minutes.

These can be quite rich with the cream cheese, but they are very tasty. To make it vegetarian just leave out the meat and it's just as good!