A simple and delicious dinner after a day of excess.  We both had holiday lunch parties at work, and despite our best intentions, we both snacked on a few too many baked goods.  I’m not sure what Shane did for dinner – he’s off to Ohio for a weekend with some bros – but I wasn’t hungry until late, and then only wanted something simple and warming.

Both Jamie Oliver and Nigel Slater have recipes for baked or broiled mushrooms with taleggio, leading me to believe that this sort of thing shows up on the British table on occasion.  I’ve had a hunk of taleggio in the fridge for a lot longer than I’d like to admit.  It’s the sort of soft and funky cheese that I love, but Shane can only take in extremely small amounts, if at all.  This makes it perfect for nights like tonight.

A dinner like this is so simple that it hardly requires a recipe.  Take a couple of large mushrooms, remove the stems, put them cap-side up in an oven-safe tray, and lay a thick slice of taleggio on each.  You could also thinly slice a couple of cloves of garlic, a shallot, or green onions (as I did) and put those in the cap before you add the cheese.  Jamie Oliver suggests baking the mushrooms in a fresh tomato sauce, but tonight I was happy to do them solo.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, until the mushrooms start to collapse in on themselves and release all their juices under the blanket of taleggio.  Eat with a crusty roll, and save the leftovers for breakfast.  I’m thinking they’ll be good in an omelet.

Recipes:
Baked taleggio mushrooms from Nigel Slater by way of The Guardian
Mushrooms and taleggio in fresh tomato sauce from Jamie’s Dinners