Sheriff of the Kitchen

Beginning in 7^th grade and spanning a time period of seven years I was a vegetarian. I consumed dairy and the occasional seafood product but aside from that, I had zero animal sources contributing to my diet. The original reason I choose to be vegetarian was because all the cool kids were doing it. HAHAH JUST KIDDING!! Hopefully no one changes their diet on a reason like that but hey…kids these days. Anyways, I actually choose to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle because I simply did not care much for meat.

When I began my freshmen year of college I had a real rough time trying to eat in the cafeteria on campus as I lived in the dorms. Some nights my only option for dinner was salad. And believe me, that gets real boring after a while. I once complained  to the staff that there were not enough vegetarian options, and was met with the response, “There’s a salad bar.” Uhmmm I think you missed the point there buddy.

In my struggle to find complete protein for my active lifestyle (I was NCAA D1 diver) I ultimately could not find enough non-heme sources to satisfy my body’s need. Heme protein is the type of protein found in meat sources, it is my understanding that this type of protein is more easily available for use by the body. Non-heme protein, which is found in plant sources, is much harder for the body to make use of, and often much less is available gram for gram as compared to its heme counter part. As I became weaker and lost a good portion of the hair on the top of my head it was time to seriously look at my diet. Beginning in June of that year, I began to slowly introduce meat and meat products into my life. OH MY! What I was missing…don’t even let me begin to tell you. Bacon, wow. Facon bacon does not do it justice and I’m so happy to have it back in my life.

But the main reason I went off on that tangent is that while I was a vegetarian my mom would come up with all of these creative items for dinner with veggies. One of my favorites was a roasted marinated mushroom with fresh creamy polenta. I wanted to jazz it and up and what did I do? Add Beer, of course. I have two more weeks of college and I’m going to milk it for all its worth! I created Drunken Portabella Mushroom it’s got a portabella mushroom marinated in a rich beer with garlic, salt, and pepper. Topped over creamy polenta, and completed with crispy onions (using the beer marinade as the batter) and a bit of fresh arugula to round it all out.

Drunken Portabella Mushrooms

Serves 2

|Gather

For the Marinade:

2 Portabella mushrooms

1 Dark beer

2-3 Gloves of Garlic, chopped

Salt and Pepper

EVOO

For the Polenta:

1 C Dry Polenta

2 C Water

1 C Milk

1 Tsp Butter

1 Tbsp. Chia Seeds (Optional)

Salt and Pepper

For the Crispy Onions:

½ C Flour

1 C Beer Marinade

Canola Oil for Frying

½ White or yellow onion

Pinch Salt and Pepper

Arugula, for garnish

|Create

Place the mushrooms into a plastic zip lock bag and pour the beer over the mushrooms, add the garlic and sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper over the top. Let marinate for two hours occasionally flipping the mixture so that both sides are easily coated. Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the mushrooms on a baking pan and drizzle with EVOO. Bake for 10 minutes then flip the mushroom and bake an additional 10 minutes.* For the polenta, bring the water milk and butter mixture to a boil then slowly stir in the polenta with a whisk. Make sure to stir continuously and in the same direction to prevent lumps. Reduce the heat and continue to stir until mixture has thicken, if you choose to add chia seeds you may do so at this point. For the crispy onions slice half a white onion half ways to allow the rings to stay in tack. Heat the oil on medium till hot enough to fry. Put the onion pieces into the marinade for a few minutes to allow the onion to soak it up a bit. Then dip them into the flour and place in the hot oil, fry until golden and crispy. Allow to drain on a paper towel.

*Note: Depending on the thickness of your mushroom more or less time may be required to fully roast the mushroom.

|Enjoy

Assemble: Place a bed of fresh polenta then place the mushroom over the top and stack onions and arugula.