Vegan Portobello Spread

I made this today, and ate it on crostini. I thought it was good, and it’s really easy to make. I think that this served on crostini, would make a good appetizer. The recipe is from The Best Recipes in The World, by Mark Bittman, published by Broadway Books, page 18. This is not a vegan or vegetarian book, but apparently many of the best recipes in the world are vegan (to my mind, all the best recipes are vegan), because there are a lot of good vegan recipes in the book, or recipes you can make vegan.

For some information about portobello mushrooms, see my blog for October 1, 2006.

Vegan Portobello Spread
makes 4 to 8 servings
This is good on crostini or in a salad.

1 pound Portobello mushrooms, stems discarded, and caps cleaned

1 pound ripe tomatoes, preferably plum, cored, seeded, and chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves or ½ teaspoon dried rosemary leaves

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or to taste

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt and black pepper to taste

Dice the mushroom caps into small pieces. Toss them with the tomatoes, garlic, rosemary, lemon juice, and olive oil. Cover and let rest at room temperature for an hour or overnight, in the refrigerator. Bring back to room temperature before serving.

Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve with crostini, or serve on lettuce leaves as a salad.


In case you want to serve this on crostini, here is a recipe I originally posted on September 24, 2006. It comes from Professional Vegetarian Cooking, by Ken Bergeron, page 55

Crostini
makes 30 crostini

French baguette(a long narrow loaf of French bread) cut into 30 thin slices

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt as desired

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Brush both sides of the baguette slices lightly with olive oil. Place the baguette slices on a sheet pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper if desired, and bake for 5 minutes. Turn over the crostini and bake for another couple of minutes.