The Time Has Come (subtitle: Pizza Take 2)

My whole life, I have resisted mushrooms. Ew, said I, They're so slimy, and they smell funny, and they're fungus. Ewwww! -So goes the musings of a small child's mind set on not liking something. The only way you'd get mushrooms down my throat was if they were cut up and mixed in something so I couldn't really taste them or so I wouldn't know if I weren't paying attention. [I'm convinced my grandmother got me to eat more mushrooms than she'll ever let on...]

About a month ago, however, I realized 2 pretty big things concerning mushrooms.
1. They don't taste so bad, if cooked well. And in fact, I can go so far as to say they taste good. [gasp!]
2. My stomach/system loves them. Seriously, I can feel my stomach smiling. -And that is HUGE!

So, I've broken down and started looking at how to cook with mushrooms. I made soup with whole mushrooms just boiled in it. (Don't worry, I'll be blogging about that soon enough...) And tonight, I made pizza again - this time with cut up mushrooms on top! (There's some fresh parsley on there as well - yum!)

And so now I'm thinking about mushrooms - I'm rather interested to see what I can do with them! I feel like Joy of Cooking and I will be having a good heart-to-heart before too long about mushrooms. The search is now on for mushroom-featured recipes that I can actually eat! Future posts will reveal what I've found! [You know what's funny - I just went to check my Gmail, and the ad header above my inbox was featuring a Mushroom Casserole recipe from 101 Cookbooks... what a crazy coincidence!]

But for now, I leave you with pictures and recipe for the pizza I had for dinner tonight. [Mmm, that's the sound of my stomach smiling...]

Cheeseless Mushroom Pizza with Fresh Parsley



1 pizza crust
3 medium-sized potatoes
~3/4 cup chopped baby white mushrooms
~1 handful of chopped fresh parsley (um, seriously, I have no idea how to measure how much I put on...)

Use pizza recipe through Step 3.

This time, I sprinkled on a generous helping of chopped mushrooms, and then sprinkled on parsley until I felt like it looked green enough without drowning out the other colors. [Because really, food is more an art than a science.]

I baked this one for about 21 minutes, and got a crispier crust and got some nice golden brown edges on the potatoes - you can see them in the picture!

[The funny story to go along with this recipe is that when I went to cut my pizza, my pizza cutter broke, and the blade (thankfully) whipped past me and rolled across the kitchen floor. Blinking with a slight about of shock from almost getting gutted by a pizza cutter, I went to pick it up, and checked the blade (because, really, the crust wasn't that crispy...). Wow - dullest pizza cutter ever! I've only used that thing once!!! And so, this pizza was cut with a nice sharp steak knife - serrated edges are good for crispy things. Never a dull moment in my kitchen - unless you're my former pizza cutter...]