Stuffed Mushrooms

I love this recipe. It has, among other things, mushrooms, olives and cheese, a combination of delicious things that gives as a result something mega-delicious. The first time I prepared it--for my first Christmas dinner in NY, back in 2007-- I used portobella mushrooms, but I think it is better with these bigg mushrooms for stuffing.

I got the idea for stuffed mushrooms from my father (he makes very good ones with cheese, bacon and white sauce), but the stuffing is mine.

Ingredients:

• 10 big mushrooms
• 10black olives
• 10 green olives (I used the ones stuffed with red pepper)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 9 scallions
• 1/5 sweet red pepper
• 3 slices of cheese

(It is not necessary to put salt because the olives are salty enough)

The first thing you must do is take the stalks away from the mushrooms and save them for later. Then, I like to cook the mushrooms in a pan, so that they don{t take too long in the oven. You can do this either with oil or with butter, as you prefer.  Put them at medium high heat with the hole down for two minutes, turn and cook until they start to through liquid, then take them out and place them in an oven proof tray.  Now prepare the stuffing: chop all the ingredients (except the cheese)  together with 5 of the stalks (save the others for some other recipe) and cook in the same pan where you cooked the mushrooms. When this is ready, place in the food processor with 1 slice of cheese, then stuff the mushrooms with the mixture and place in the oven at  400°F  (200°C) for 5 minutes.  Cover with the remaining cheese and broil for two minutes.

Mashed Peas

I think that for any Chilean the mashed stuff in the photo would seem like avocado, and though in many ocasions I eat salmon with avocado, this time I tried something new: mashed peas.  I got the idea from one of Jamie Oliver's 15 minute meals.

The recipe includes, besides peas, mint, and because I thought this to be a bit weird I did not dare to put the quantity recommended by Jamie (a handful), so I just used a few loose leaves: I regret it!! It was good, but with more mint it would have been much better.  The mint gives the mashed peas a refreshing aftertaste, but in my recipe you can barely feel it, you must definitely use more.

Ingredients

• 1 bag (500 g) of frozen green peas
• 10 leaves of fresh mint
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tbsp. of butter
• 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

The preparation is easy.  Cook the peas following the direcctions in the bag, and in the last minute add the mint and the garlic.  Place all the contents of the pan (excepting the water) and the lemon in the food processor and mash it up until you get a nice consistency. Add butter, salt and ppepper and mix until the butter has melted.

My Mama's Flan (pimped out)

This is the typical egg flan (custard) that was made in my house, but with some modifications. The first variation is that I only used half of the ingredients, because we are only two persons.  The second is that instead of vanilla, the extract that is typically used, I used almond extract (it has a taste similar to amaretto), and I think it was a great choice. The third diference is that I added strawberries to the caramel, so it became a very pretty and tasty pink sauce.
Why did I add strawberries? Because I had strawberries that needed to be saved.  They were the remaining strawberries of a 2 pound-box that I had bought.  The ugliest ones, or the ones that were not quite ripe, the ones that nobody wanted to eat, but I now devoured.

 Ingredients
    For the flan (custard):

• 1/2 liter  of milk
• 4eggs
• 3/8 cup of sugar
• 2 tsp.of almond extract

    For the sauce:

• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of water
• 10 strawberries

Preheat the oven at 350°F (175°C) .  Start by preparing the sauce: in a small pan place the sugar, water and strawberries at medium high heat. Once it starts to bubble and some foam appears, take out the strawberries, reduce the heat  and continue to cook until the sauce thickens.  Take it off the heat and put it in an oven proof tray for the flan.

While the sauce cools down, in a bowl mix all the ingredients of the flan by hand, trying not to put too much air into the mixture. Place the mixture in the tray over the sauce, and put the tray in a bigger tray filled with boiling water. Put in the oven for 45 minutes.    

To take the flan out of the tray you must wait until it is cold, if not it can breaks as it happened to me.