Sorry for the lack of posting- I swear I’ll try to work on it!! I’m sure I’ll have LOTS of posts once I start cooking school at the end of September- wooohoooooo!!!

Anywho, this past weekend my family had my cousins over for dinner. One of the things I made for the night was an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms. I’ve used this recipe a couple times before as it takes no time to prep and cook, and leaves plenty of time to focus on the main course!!

The recipe is adapted from KCTS Cooks Appetizers.

Roasted Mushroom Caps with Bell Pepper Pesto & Goat Cheese

10 large mushrooms

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp each garlic powder, oregano, basil, marjoram and salt

1/6 tsp pepper

Red pepper pesto or chipotle pepper pesto

4 oz goat cheese, room temperature

2 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1 oz butter, room temperature

Pop the stems from the mushrooms and peel the tops. Toss with oil and herbs.

**Tip, to get the stem out as fully as possible, push it in first, then pull out.

Lay peeled mushrooms out on a pie plate or tray, stem side up. Fill the mushrooms with a (heaping) tablespoon of pesto. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until mushrooms are cooked and pesto is set. (Mushrooms will shrink).

**Allow too cool- these are served cold.

Whip the goat cheese, cream cheese, and butter until smooth. Pipe onto pesto. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

** I use a small star tip for the goat cheese mixture, I have tried a large plain circle tip and it doesn’t seem to work as well.

My new favourite breakfast is actually quite healthy. After being unable to eat sugar for so long due to a candida problem (yeast in the blood) I find that I don’t even want sugar in any of the quantities I used to eat it. Often now, one bite of something sweet is more than enough! It used to be frustrating because when the weekend rolled around I would want waffles or syrupy pancakes or even muffins, as a “treat”. Now I am so satisfied that I can make a healthy dish feel like a treat! I take out a nice, biiiiig margarita glass and fill it up about 1/3 of the way with plain balkan style yogurt. I then add some fresh fruit (my favourites right now are raspberries and blueberries- local of course!) and then add some minimally-sweetened granola. Add a dash of cinnamon and I am ready to ‘indulge’!