Mushrooms on the Side

Happy Thursday! While I was making my shopping list over the weekend, I was brainstorming vegetable side dishes to go with chicken breast. I'm used to making broccoli, sauteed spinach, brussels sprouts, a simple salad, or many varieties of potato,  but this vegetable doesn't usually come to mind: mushrooms. I almost always buy mushrooms to cook them in something, but I can't remember the last time I cooked them as a side dish. 

 Mushrooms are extremely easy to cook. I just threw them on a hot pan (Al bought them chopped already) with some butter and spices. Within ten minutes, they had softened, shrunken in size, and absorbed everything else in the pan. They already have a strong, umami flavor that doesn't require much tampering with to taste delicious. 

Here's a fun fact about mushrooms: did you know that they're one of the few plant foods that contain vitamin D? If they are irradiated, or exposed to ultraviolet light, they have even more. Apparently, cooked mushrooms also contain more of the vitamin than eating them raw. If you eat one serving of an irradiated and grilled portabella mushroom, for example, you could be getting more than half of  the vitamin D that you need in one day! Regardless, I wouldn't recommend depending entirely on mushrooms for your vitamin D needs (even if it is tasty!). It's best to get them from a variety of foods. 

For the main star of my dinner on Tuesday, I got my inspiration from a Hasselback chicken recipe on Proper Tasty. (If you don't already follow these Tasty pages on Facebook, I recommend it. You will sit there and drool.) My chicken breasts ended up being too thin to make deep slits. I was only able to make about two slits and had to cut down and then horizontally to be able to fit anything inside of it. It may have not looked like the Tasty video, but it tasted fantastic! The mushrooms also complimented the chicken perfectly.  

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Spinach and Feta Hasselback Chicken (inspired by Proper Tasty's Hasselback Chicken)

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup baby spinach, rinsed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 T butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Melt butter on stove on  medium heat. 
3. Add baby spinach. Cook, mixing around in butter, until wilted. 
4. Add feta cheese and mix immediately with spatula (it will melt instantly). Quickly pour mixture onto plate and put aside. 
5. Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt, pepper. 
6. Using a sharp knife, make 3-4 deep slits (short-wise; not long-wise) across the chicken breast. (Don't cut all the way through the chicken; cut about 3/4 of the way through.) Evenly distribute spinach-cheese mixture into slits. 
7. Evenly distribute shredded mozzarella cheese across the top of each chicken breast.
8. Put in oven for 25-30 minutes or until cooked through. 

Easy Sauteed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 1 package baby bella mushrooms, sliced (if not pre-sliced, prep mushrooms by wiping off  dirt with paper towel, remove stems, and slice lengthwise).
• 1-2 T butter or olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Melt butter/heat oil in pan on stove.
2. Add mushrooms and spices.
3. Cook about 10-15 minutes, gradually moving around with spatula.  If mushrooms appear dry, they may need more butter or oil. 
4. All done!