Portobello Pizza

The past five days have been a whirlwind of activity with little time for cooking. Saturday we managed to siphon enough time to get to Sam's Club. While the purpose was not for stocking up on food I managed to pick up a few food items, mainly large containers of seasonings. I also picked up a package of beautiful looking portobello mushrooms.

Portobello mushrooms are the mature form of brown crimini mushrooms. These mushrooms are often used in vegetarian cooking. They are very impressive simply by size often reaching diameters of 6 inches. They have a bit deeper more pronounced flavour than the juvenile crimini mushrooms which is to be expected. Portebello mushrooms are ideal for used as a bread replacement because they have a lovely texture when cooked. Believe me you won't even miss the bread when you substitute porobello mushrooms!

There were four lovely portobello mushrooms in the package. Now generally portobellos are viewed as expensive but these worked out to $1.05 each I will tell you I really do not like buying any kind of mushroom in a plastic wrapped tray. Mushrooms are like sponges so absorb moisture. This type of packaging can cause the mushrooms to be soggy and soil quickly plus it is not very environmentally friendly. Mushrooms packaged this way should be repackaged into a paper bag for storage in the crisper.

I decided that an easy meal of portobello pizza was in order. Toppings included home canned pizza sauce, green peppers, tomatoes, onions, bacon and Asiago cheese. Essentially the portobello mushroom is used in place of pizza dough.

Method: Place the mushroom on a baking sheet with gills facing up. Top with pizza sauce and desired toppings. Bake at 350ºF until cheese is bubbly.

You will need to use a knife and fork for eating portobello pizzas when eating a whole one. Portobello mushrooms have an intense enough flavour that they can easily accent stronger flavoured cheeses. One of the real beauties of homemade pizza based dishes is they are versatile. Use the toppings you want and leave omit the rest.

My husband wanted only sauce, cheese and bacon on his portobello pizza. I chose an Asiago cheese for this purpose as it has a bit more flavour that pairs nicely with the depth of flavour of the portobello mushroom. Bacon is another topping that pairs nicely with the flavour of portobello. Mine was topped with onion, green pepper, tomato slices, bacon, sauce and cheese. Both were quite lovely but very filling!

Portobello pizzas are very filling so don't let the smaller size fool you. Baked they are still a good 5 inches in diameter but are very meaty. Even though you are not getting a lot of carbs, the portobello mushroom itself is quite meaty and filling. One large portobello is more than sufficient per person for this meal. If anything it is more filling than the bread crust version. This dish would make a great appetizer as well although you may want to cut them into quarters.