Table Talk
Playing Top Chef
It was Tuesday afternoon, and time to think about dinner. Actually, I'd been thinking about dinner all day. There had been a menu forming in my head since remembering that I had a couple of large, meaty portobello mushrooms sitting in my refrigerator that I really needed to use, since they were in danger of spoiling if I didn't. But what to do? My first thought was to stuff them with seafood, so when I stopped at the market, I wandered back to the seafood counter and discovered that the King Crab legs were on sale. I purchased a couple of big legs, expecting to use them as the base of my filling. When I arrived home, I proceeded to rummage around in the refrigerator to come up with some other ingredients for my filling: basil from my garden, fresh Parmesan, part of an orange bell pepper, a slice of bread from the loaf I'd just purchased at Great Harvest, a few ounces of goat cheese, a half an onion, some garlic, some artichoke hearts.
I've done this before: fashioned dinner from a little of this and a little of that, in an attempt to use up the remains of ingredients and clear out the refrigerator. But I suddenly felt like I was on that Food Network show where a bunch of competing chefs are all assigned the same task, who then have to come up with some dish worthy of the finest restaurant. This particular challenge was the one where they had to use a bunch of leftover ingredients. Now time for the judges...
The moaning during dinner was my first clue that the meal had worked. I knew I'd hit a home run when I heard my daughter Jill telling her friend Steph about the mushrooms. Here is the whole menu:
Grilled King Crab-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
Grilled Olathe Corn with Basil Smoked Paprika Butter
Grilled Sourdough Garlic Bread
Mixed Greens with Black & Red Raspberries & Jicama
