In the past I’ve written about how Brad grows shiitake mushrooms.

He does not force his mushrooms; he just let’s mother nature work and when his logs produce, we cut them and use them or sell them to a few people who also love them. 

The weather has been perfect, and for some reason, we’ve had a bumper crop of mushrooms over the last couple of weeks.

It seems like every day we were out cutting what the squirrels hadn’t eaten.

We like wildlife, but we don’t like it eating our crops. 

We ended up harvesting at least 20 pounds of shiitakes, and I had to figure out how to use them. 

I’ve written about Brad’s favorite way I cook them (with asparagus and a warm bacon dressing), but I wanted to do something different with them. 

Appetizing Shiitakes

INGREDIENTS

— 12 large shiitake mushrooms

— 2 tablespoons butter or margarine

— 1 medium onion, diced

— 1/2 (4 oz) package sliced pepperoni, chopped

— 1/4 cup diced green bell pepper

— 1 garlic clove, minced

— 1/3 cup chicken broth

— 12 round buttery crackers, crushed

— 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

— 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

— 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

— Dash of pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Remove the stems from mushrooms, and discard. Place mushroom caps in a 15 x 10-inch jelly roll .

I started looking through the appetizer recipes I’ve clipped, and this one stood out because my son, Daniel, was going to join us for supper Sunday evening, and he shares Brad’s love for shiitakes.

The only ingredient I don’t keep on hand is pepperoni, so I picked some up at the grocery Saturday morning.

Late Saturday afternoon, I decided I’d make the filling for the mushrooms, so I’d just have to stuff them and bake them Sunday.

As I started preparing the ingredients, I figured my food chopper would work on the pepperoni. Since it’s sticky, it took more pounding on the chopper handle than I expected.

I diced an onion and measured out some frozen green pepper I had on hand.

I minced the garlic and then crushed the crackers in a little bag. I grated the parmesan, and instead of using fresh parsley I used dried.

As the skillet heated on the stove, and the butter melted in the pan, I added the chopped onions and cooked them at medium until they were tender.

I added the pepperoni, green pepper and the garlic.

This was smelling good, and Brad wondered what was going on in the kitchen.

Next, I poured in the chicken broth and the remaining ingredients.

This was simple.

The hardest part was chopping the pepperoni. The filling was done, so I placed it in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Sunday afternoon, about an hour before Daniel was to arrive, I removed the stems from 12 appetizer sized mushrooms.

You don’t eat the stems of shiitake mushrooms because they are tough.

You can cook with them for the flavor, but you should remove them before eating. The mushrooms I picked were ones you could easily hold in your hand and eat in two or three bites.

The recipe calls for large, but the large ones we had were almost the size of my hand, and that’s not appetizer size.

I turned on the oven and removed the filling from the refrigerator.

I scooped some filling on to each mushroom cap, making sure each mushroom had lots on top.

I still had filling left over so I stemmed a few more shiitakes and used up the filling. Each mushroom was overflowing.

I placed them all on a rimmed cookie sheet and added water to the pan.

I placed the pan in the oven and finished getting the rest of our meal together.

When the timer sounded, Daniel had arrived. So I placed some of the Appetizing Shiitakes on a plate.

Daniel and Brad were in our great room talking when I walked in and handed each of them a small plate.

I returned to the room with a medium size plate full of shiitake mushroom appetizers, and they both took one. I waited anxiously to see their reaction.

They dug in and both started shaking their heads up and down. I figured that meant they liked them. I offered them more and they both dug in and helped themselves to a few more.

By the time they were talking, both let me know the appetizers were “really good,” “so good.”

I think they both had to stop themselves so they could leave room for our meal.

This is no doubt a Nailed It recipe.

It was simple to put together and as soon as we have shiitakes again, I know I’ll be making these for Brad and whoever else is at our house.

There were stuffed mushrooms left over, and Brad had them the next day for lunch. He loved them, almost as much as his favorite mushrooms, asparagus, and warm bacon dressing dish.

According to Daniel and Brad, this recipe is headed to my self-made cookbook.

Sarah Condley is an amateur baker and chef who is compiling a cookbook of her favorite recipes.