Roasted Mushrooms Stuffed with Spinach, Cheese, and Bacon

These little bite size stuffed mushrooms are rich and decadent. I would have preferred to use slightly larger mushrooms because I was not expecting for them to shrink when roasting. They are a lot of work but worth it and they can be made ahead of time and just heated up when you are ready to eat. The left over stuffing tastes great with eggs the next day! If I were to make these again I would want larger mushrooms and perhaps use crab meat instead of bacon. I also think some chopped walnut pieces would taste delightful as well. I picked up some beautiful slices of bacon from Jeffrey's Market in the Lower East Side and the smell was so delicious and intense when making the slices crispy. I adapted these from this recipe I found on epicurious.com. The bacon pieces were like lovely little surprises in each mushroom!

Roasted Mushrooms Stuffed with Spinach, Cheese and Bacon

(The stuffing is enough for about 48 mushrooms but I just made about 25 mushrooms and used the rest of the stuffing in a sandwich and with scrambled eggs)

Ingredients:

8 ounces bacon slices

1 cup chopped onion

1 10-ounce package chopped, frozen spinach, thawed, squeeze dried

3/4 cup feta crumbled

3/4 cup gorgonzola crumbled

1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

Button mushrooms, stemmed

1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a skillet cook the bacon until it is crispy about 8 minutes. Press the bacon on paper towels to drain and crumble into small pieces. Set aside.

2. Sautee the onion in the skillet over medium heat until the onion is tender. Transfer the onion to a medium bowl and let cool. Mix in the bacon, spinach, feta, gorgonzola, and crushed red pepper. Season with pepper to taste.

3. Line to large baking sheets with tin foil. Toss the mushrooms in 1/4 cup olive oil to coat and sprinkle with pepper. Place the mushrooms on the baking sheet with the rounded side down. Bake the mushrooms until their centers fill with liquid, about 20-25 minutes depending on how large the mushrooms are. Take the pans out of the oven and turn the mushrooms over to drain out the liquid. Spoon one heaping teaspoon of filling into each mushroom. (This is the wonderful do-ahead part, you can totally cover the mushrooms and chill them until you are ready to bake and serve, WOO-HOO!)

4. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees and serve warm.