Stuffed Mushroom Bread

Carbs. Who doesn't love carbs? I mean, really? I would be so much better at doing a carb-only diet rather than a low-carb diet. Why doesn't that exist? Why can't they invent that? 

Give me all the carbs!

Whenever hubby and I do decide to cut carbs from our diet, it's bread that keeps calling to me and haunting my dreams. Warm, crusty, buttery bread. We've always had a very strong connection and we've always seen eye-to-eye. Bread just gets me. 

Know what the only thing better than bread is? Bread covered in ooey gooey cheese. It's true. It's a fact. And if you're a lover of stuffed mushrooms, you know, the ones filled with the most delicious garlicy, cheesy goodness, then you're probably going to faint when you try this recipe. 

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Also... make sure to try it with your spaghetti. Dip it in the sauce, drop some noodles on top... and be prepared for greatness. Or, try the spread over some grilled meat for a low-carb option. Toss it in the broiler for a couple minutes to melt the cheese and enjoy! Or just eat it by the spoonful, if you'd like. There's no wrong way to devour this cheesy spread of goodness.

See those little brown flecks in the photo below? Those are mushroom bits. You're going to grow to love those adorable little brown speckles. 

Say hello to your new favorite way to eat a deconstructed stuffed mushroom!

Stuffed Mushroom Bread:

{Print Recipe}

Ingredients:

1 small loaf Tuscan Bread - or any other crusty bread (mine was pre-sliced)

2 teaspoons olive oil

8oz container of sliced mushrooms

3 cloves garlic, minced

8oz cream cheese

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons shredded parmesan cheese

5 large basil leaves, torn

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Toss in mushrooms and cook for about 15-20 minutes, or until mushrooms are a deep brown/golden brown color and starting to dry out just a little. Toss in garlic and cook for 1 minute longer. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Pour mushrooms into food processor and pulse until they become very small chunks. Add in cream cheese, mayonnaise, butter, cheeses and basil and pulse until well combined. 

Spread mixture (about a tablespoon for small slices of bread, or 2 tablespoons for larger slices of bread) over your bread, sprinkle additional parmesan on top,  place on baking sheet and into oven for 18-20 minutes, or until bread is toasted and cheeses are melted and starting to turn golden. 

Remove from oven and serve immediately!

Italian Salsa

So, this past week i've been sick and I've come to realize one thing: it stinks. Drippy nose, sore throat, congestion that makes you feel like your face is going to pop -- you know, all the fun stuff. I remember being a kid and thinking that being sick was kind of awesome. No school, sick bed on the couch, tv all to yourself -- could life get any sweeter? Now that i'm all grown up, I realize that being sick as an adult has absolutely no perks whatsoever. When you have kids who need to go to school, be fed and bathed and all that jazz, you have no real down-time... Fathers on the other hand... Well, let's just say when my husband is sick, he gets a full-time waiter, pillow-fluffer and masseuse. Which is why I feel that someone should really put a few rules into play for sick mothers:

Rule #1 When a mother is sick she is in no way required to wait on un-sick family members. 

This rule only applies to those family members who are not also sick, because, of course, if another family member in the home is sick, they will always take priority.

Rule #2 The only time a sick mother should have to get out if bed is when she chooses to.

There should never be a point where you absolutely have to get out of bed while sick. No responsibilities, no work, nothing.

Rule #3 Sick mothers should always receive gifts of chocolate and other sweets.

If there was ever a time when I wish I had an endless stash of chocolate, it's when I feel helpless and my body is under attack.

For now, those are the 3 most important rules and I won't continue on to the other 873. I'll save them for another time. 

Okay, so, now that i've gotten that all off my chest, I think I can focus on the important issue at hand: a new recipe! Last week I was trying to think of something fun and different for all you fine people and it just kind of hit me... an Italian Salsa recipe! I'm not sure if it's been done before (i'm sure it has, because everything has) but when I imagined it in my mind, it was tangy, a little sweet, and packed full of yummy italian flavors. 

After I chopped up all my ingredients and after I let them sit in the fridge and get to know each other on a personal level, I couldn't have been happier with the finished product! It reminded me almost of a pasta salad... minus the pasta, of course. Next time I make it, I'll be serving it up on some toasted baguettes -- bruschetta style. It would look so pretty and taste oh, so good!

It's a great spring recipe that would be wonderful to take to a potluck or a party. Give it a try and let me know what you think! 

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Italian Salsa:

{Print Recipe}

Ingredients:

• 3 roma tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 cup quartered artichoke hearts, chopped
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 5 large pepperoncini, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 tablespoons fresh basil, chiffonade
• 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped 
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 tablespoons white wine vinegar 
• 1-1/2 teaspoons dry oregano 
• 1/2 teaspoon dry basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dry thyme 

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a medium bowl and combine. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or for at least 8 hours to get the best flavor. Serve with crackers, flatbread or toasty bread.

Churro Cheesecake Bombs

It's easy to wake up on Monday morning and think to yourself "wow, I really could have used my free time this past weekend a lot better."  Or feel like you didn't get enough rest in, or that you didn't get enough free-time or me-time. This past weekend was a perfect weekend for me, one full of relaxing, spending time together as a family and watching some sports games that didn't end at all how we had hoped. Oh well.

The hardest part about the weekend for me is trying to keep my almost-2-year-old from destroying the house so we can actually enjoy lounging, instead of sitting there, surrounded by billions of little toys, feeling like we live in a dump... a toy dump. I love my son, I do, but right now he's at the stage where his idea of "playing with toys" is actually just to take a toy, place it in a random spot in the house, then get another toy and place it in the trash, then get another toy and throw it at his sister, and so on. If I find one more puzzle piece in the sink I'm probably going to break.

On Sunday we had planned to watch the Packers vs. Seahawks game, followed by the UFC fight and it was going to be my job to make all the snacks (of course!) I made my Crispy BBQ Wings, Jalapeño Popper dip (coming later this week!) and these amazing Churro Cheesecake Bombs that I'm going to share with you right now!

The first step in making a truly delicious Cheesecake Bomb is by making a truly delicious cheesecake mixture! Then, you take that truly delicious cheesecake mixture and stuff it inside of a triangle of crescent roll dough. Easy peasy, right?

The next step is baking them until they're golden brown...

Like this! Then you roll them in some cinnamon sugar...

And Voilà! You now have yourself a plate of delicious Churro Cheesecake Bombs to serve to your sports-watching crew! How easy was that? Try not to eat them all before you serve them... I know it will be a challenge!

These bombs taste great slightly warm or at room temperature, it just depends on your preference! I haven't tried refrigerating them yet because they never stick around for very long. If you have any that do make it into the fridge, leave me a comment below and tell me how they taste ;)

Churro Cheesecake Bombs:

{Print Recipe}

Ingredients:

• 2 cans crescent roll dough
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 cup granulated sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place cream cheese, egg, 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla and lemon juice in a stand mixer and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes), making sure to scrape the bowl at least twice (gotta get those cream cheese clumps incorporated!)

Unroll crescent dough and divide into triangles. Place a rounded tablespoon full of the cream cheese mixture on the wide part of the crescent roll, fold over, seal all edges, forming a "ball" shape, then fold the thin end of the crescent dough over the top of your bomb. Place on your baking sheet and repeat with remaining crescent rolls.

Allow bombs to cool slightly, then combine cinnamon and remaining sugar in a shallow dish and roll each bomb in the cinnamon sugar to coat.

Bake in preheated oven for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 16 Bombs.

Linked to:
Flour me with love, skip to my lou, the ny melrose family, buns in my oven, ducks in a row

Garlic Bacon Mushrooms made with Pompeian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I love cooking with different types of ingredients and trying out new things, but sometimes I love just using what I know will taste amazing and what I know works for my recipes. For the recipe i'm going to share with you today, I used Pompeian Extra Virgin Olive Oil to do all my sautéing.  I've cooked with this oil quite a bit in the past and I always love how amazing my recipes come out when I use it! It has a great flavor and is perfect for sautéing! It's a super high-quality product that is very affordable -- which is a huge plus!

It's also great for roasting veggies and browning meat for stews... Perfect for that cool-weather cooking! Oh, and I'm also going to be using it to make a big batch if Pesto this week -- yum! 

For the very special recipe I have prepared for you today, I decided to use a few of my favorite things! Mushrooms are one of my favorite things to cook with... So is bacon...And Garlic... and Pompeian Olive Oil, of course... Which is why I came up with the recipe below for Garlic Bacon Mushrooms. Makes sense, right? This recipe is great as an appetizer, a topping for steak, chicken, pork ... Or simply just eaten by the forkful as you stand over the pan. The possibilities are endless, really...

Garlic Bacon Mushrooms Recipe:

Ingredients:

16 ounces fresh sliced mushrooms

8 cloves fresh garlic, minced

6 slices bacon

2 tablespoons Pompeian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley

Salt & Pepper

Instructions:

In a large skillet over medium heat, fry bacon until crisp. Remove and set on paper towels to drain. Reserve 1 tablespoon bacon grease and add 2 tablespoons Pompeian Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Add garlic, cook for two minutes then add mushrooms. Saute mushrooms for 7-8 minutes. Add bacon and cook for additional 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve. 

Makes about 2 cups.

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**I was provided a free Pompeian product for review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.**