Who Remembers Cook Books?

I remember the day I received my first cook book. I laughed. Out loud. It was a high school graduation gift from some people we had met in the sheep business. And it was a beautiful hard-cover book with wonderful photography. But it had recipes in it, and well, that would mean I’d be stuck in the kitchen. Anyone who knew me knew I’d much rather be in the barn or out with my animals.

Fast forward a few years, and my grandparents presented me with the red church cookbook. You know the one – all the church ladies submit their favorite recipes and some prayers and it’s spiral bound. I still couldn’t find a good use for it.

Then, I moved away from home. And I had to cook. That red, spiral-bound book with recipes submitted by my relatives and my grandma’s friends became my best friend. I have used it over and over, and starred some of my favorites. I also am a big fan of my Better Homes and Garden book my mom gave me. And during the 22 years since I received that first cook book, I’ve received several others during my travels or as gifts.

But those cook books don’t do me any good when I’m at the grocery store thinking about what is for dinner. Thank goodness for hand-held technology…I can Google the ingredient I want to cook, and a recipe magically appears!  

That is what I really like about www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com. Not only does this site have great recipes, but it also serves as a nutrition resource, offers advice on cooking methods and has an interactive butcher counter, which I love.

So, I was on the BIWFD web site, wondering what fun summer treat I could make with ground beef (remember last week I talked about the versatility of a hamburger?). And, I found this great recipe that combines three of my favorite food – beef, mushrooms and blue cheese! It is an appetizer, but that works great because Stan and I often like to have some munchies while we cook and this one was healthy and great! Click here for the recipe: Beef and Blue Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

I did tweak the recipe a little bit, and will share with you what I did. The recipe calls for ½ pound of ground beef for 36-40 mushrooms. It was just the two of us, so I cleaned and stuffed 16 mushroom caps – and all my ground beef filling (beef, blue cheese crumbles, bread crumbs, seasoning and chives) filled those without feeling like they were “overstuffed.” It was exciting to use the fresh chives that I had planted in our herb garden earlier in the spring. I used Canadian steak seasoning and Italian bread crumbs to spice up the flavor a little.

I cooked the mushrooms for 20 minutes in the broiler, and they were delish! It didn’t take 20 minutes for Stan and me to devour these tasty  little morsels of beef and ‘shrooms! They were great and we are already talking about making them again and adapting the recipe to use parmesan or mozzarella cheese instead of blue cheese.