Portobellos Stuffed with Lamb Sausage and Zucchini

So there’s a bit of a cheat in this recipe. The butcher at New Seasons had Gyros seasoned lamb sausage on sale. It comes with onions, garlic and spices already in the sausage – all ready to cook. It was on sale for 5.99/pound.

I turned the oven on to 400 Fahrenheit.

I used a single 1/4 pound patty for this recipe. I diced up 1/2 of a small zucchini and mixed it together with the lamb sausage.

I cleaned two portobello tops, removing the gills and the stem which I reserved for an omelet tomorrow. I rubbed a bit of olive oil on the top, and spread the zucchini/sausage mix into the caps. I put them in a pan and put them in the preheated oven and let cook about 20 minutes.

They were not quite done, but it was time to put a bit of provolone on top. I sliced about 1/2 ounce of provolone and spread the very thin slices across the top and let cook until the cheese browned and served with a Charred Tomato Salad.

It was delicious, hearty and satsifying with that wonderful earthiness of mushroom and the aromatic flavor of seasoned lamb.

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Lamb Tarragon Wine Sauce, Spinach Pasta and Slow-Roasted Asparagus

I started water boiling for the pasta and preheated oven to 450. I cut the dried ends off the asparagus spears and put them in a shallow roasting pan with a bit of olive oil. I rolled them around to get the oil to coat the spears and sprinkled kosher salt on them and put them in the oven. When the water started boiling I added fresh spinach noodles (these are from Pastaworks) and began working on the sauce.

I put a couple teaspoons of olive oil in a skillet, added 2 tbsp of sliced leeds and cooked a couple minutes. I added 1 clove of minced garlic and 2 tsp of dried tarragon and 1 tsp of dry mustard and cooked a bit more. I took 3.5 ounces of lamb sausage and broke it up into the skillet and let it cook. While it cooked I sliced 5 mushrooms and 1 small tomato. I added them after the meat had browned. By then the pasta was done and I strained it into a colander. Putting it back in the pan, I added a bit of my cooking juice and stirred it in so it didn’t get sticky.

Back to the sauce, I added a splash of white wine (about 4 TBSP) and put the lid on a minute. I then plated the pasta, ladled some sauce on and pulled the asparagus out of the oven – perfectly done and added them to the plate.  I squeeze a bit of fresh lemon juice on the asparagus. The lamb sauce on the pasta has a lovely savory taste with a bit of heat from the mustard and beautiful freshness from the tarragon. That dash of lemon juice was a perfect complement to the asparagus, offsetting the olive oil and salt splendidly.

The asparagus was not literally slow-roasted. I just forgot to turn the oven on at first.

Gyros Burger & Greek Salad

This is embarrassingly easy. New Seasons sells a fresh gyros lamb sausage. I bought 5 ounces and fried it in a burger shape on the skillet. For the bun, I combined three of the raw English Muffin dough pieces I had stored in the fridge and cooked on a griddle 10 minutes on one side and 5 minutes on the other. The sauce is 2 TBSP of plain yogurt, 1 TBSP of feta cheese, 1 tsp of oregano, 1 tsp of garlic powder and some salt and pepper. A one-minute sauce reminiscent of tsatziki.

The sald is made from three leaves of romaine, 1/2 ounce of feta, 6 olives, 1/4 of a Roma tomato and one green onion sliced finely. I added 1 TBSP of Greek-Feta Vinaigrette.