Crab stuff mushroom cap with a side of zucchini ribbons… oh yeah!

We were hungry. I hadn’t gone shopping. I had to make dinner. What to do?? Quick! Look in the cabinet. Mull over what was in the fridge. Have a sip or two of wine. A piece of cheese. Think, think…. Aha! Those portobellos I bought to grill like hamburgers? Mmmmm…. And that’s how it started. A quick look at our rations and I pulled together:

• 4 portobello mushrooms
• 2 cans of canned crab meat
• a cup of ricotta cheese
• half cup of finely grated parmesan cheese
• dried oregano and parsley, salt, pepper, dried garlic
• about a cup of crushed garlic croutons (’cause I ran out of breadcrumbs.)
• an egg
• thinly sliced mozzarella cheese

This is so stinking easy to make and it tasted great. I just drained the crab meat and added it to a bowl along with all those other ingredients (except the mozzarella – that went last.) I mixed it all up — probably using about 1/2 teaspoon or so of each of the spices… but of course, I do everything to taste.  Stuffed the portobellos by patting the mixture inside the cap and put all four of them into my big old wrought iron pan. Added about a cup of white wine to the pan. Put it in an oven heated to 400 and let it go for 20 minutes. Then I added a slice of mozzarella cheese to each and let that continue to cook for another 5 -10 minutes. In the meantime — I had a few zucchini in the fridge. My absolute favorite way to eat zucchini these days is also probably the simplest preparation of all. I washed them and cut off the ends. Using my basic vegetable peeler — I peeled ribbons of the squash right into a hot pan that had a bit of olive oil in it.  Then I shaved some fresh garlic into the same pan and added a few pinches of salt. It only takes a few minutes of tossing these thin ribbons around to cook them.  I’ve served this with pesto sauce, with red sauce, with cooked tomatoes — and always a little shaved cheese on top.  This tastes like pasta to me and is so much healthier for you, you can’t go wrong. The whole dinner took me about 1/2 hour to prepare and get on the table. Not bad, eh?

And simply peel the zucchini…. go as far as the seeds.. then discard the core.

Shave fresh garlic cloves using your shaver right into the pan…

Just sauté the zucchini & garlic…

Get creative. I made this again tonight and I added thinly sliced tomatoes, some pesto sauce, left over cooked eggplant…and topped it with shaved cheese!