This is a recipe taken from my father.  He didn’t cook a ton, but there were a few dishes he made quite well.  This is one of them that I doctored up with additional herbs for added flavor. These stuffed mushrooms are healthy,  gluten free, no-carb and dairy-free.  They are made with a secret flavoring ingredient:  anchovies.   The anchovy filets pretty much disintegrate when they are sautéed with the chopped mushrooms – so those who get haunted by the sight of anchovies on their Caesar salad but are fine with their flavor in the dressing, will like this recipe and may never know they’re in there.   Their flavor adds a lot of seasoning and depth.

They key is to finely chop the mushrooms and open up the caps to hold enough filling.  I take a paring knife and slice around the mushroom cap and the gills and add them to the chopped mushroom mixture.  This leaves a bigger cap to fill.

The mushrooms can be cooked and then frozen for future servings.  Just thaw out the mushrooms before heating them up.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

1 lb large sized white mushrooms

1/ 4pound small crimini mushrooms, chopped finely

1 1 oz can of anchovies packed in olive oil

1 garlic clove finely chopped or grated using microplane

¼ teaspoon ground pepper

3 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 375°.   Finely chop the stems from the pound of white mushrooms and the stems and caps of the crimini mushrooms. Add the can of anchovies with the oil, garlic, pepper, parsley and thyme, and sauté the mushrooms until the anchovies disintegrate. Line a baking pan with foil and place the mushroom caps on lined pan. Fill the mushroom caps with a teaspoon each of the filling.  And bake for about 30 minutes, until the mushroom caps are soft and cooked.

Serves 4-6 as appetizer.