Mushroom Sarnies and Mixed Seafood Soup...Yum!

I've had Portobello's sitting in my fridge for a bit and I really wanted to make a sandwich I got from one of Jamie Oliver's shows a few years back; it was from the time I attempted to go vegetarian. He called it a Mushroom Sarnie...I guess this is just a fancy word for sandwich in British lingo.

Though Jamie cooked his mushrooms in the oven, I decided to go with the barbecue. I just oil my grill, place the portobellos gill side down for about 2 minutes, flip them over, spoon on a generous helping of butter and cook till dripping and loose. That red stuff you see is the butter that goes with the portobello. I've included the recipe below. After that, you just serve the cooked portobellos on rye bread with Dijon mustard and watercress or any type of lettuce. I like this recipe cause it really showcases the meatyness of portobellos. I've seen a chili recipe once where the cubes of beef were replaced by cubes of these wonderful thick mushrooms. (By the way, when you buy your portobellos, remove the woody stems before you put them in your bag...just a little cheapskate trick ;)

My girlfriend also decided to make a mixed seafood chowder with that. Here in the Maritimes they sell relatively cheap packs of mixed seafood that sometimes look as though some young trainy was filleting the fish. This particular mix had haddock, lobster, scallops and really tiny shrimp. They sometimes have salmon, trout, crab and other seafood in there. It's scraps really.

The chowder (seen in front there) includes in order of cooking: bacon, cubed carrots, potatos, onions and celery, fish or chicken stock, fresh thyme, oregano and parsley. You can also add cream but this tends to make for a heavier soup and it is summer after all. We sadly didn't have any fish stock and so the seafood was confused by the broth. A sort of surf and turf thing.

Sun Dried Tomato and Chili Butter

8 oz (1 cup) butter, softened

4 sun dried tomatos

1 red chili (I used a cherry chili)

garlic

leaves of 3 fresh thyme sprigs

sea salt

pepper

1. Stick it all in a food processor and blend or chop ingredients and fold them into butter