A Tale of Two Appetizers // Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms and Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Bites

I’ve been feeling very crabby lately.

Oh, no. Not crabby, “crabby” as in, “I’m feeling cross today,” crabby, but more along the lines of, “I feel like eating about a dozen whole crabs to myself with extra butter, please,” crabby. Make sense? I may have confused you even more. I have a tendency to do that.

Last Friday, I gathered up some ingredients to make simple crab-stuffed mushrooms for dinner. They were delicious. Sweet, tangy, juicy, and delectable — they were the perfect meal for hubby and I. It’s been super tricky planning out my cooking-and-picture-taking-for-blog strategy since the time change and so I hope you can forgive me for my EPIC fail at trying to take good pictures of the stuffed mushrooms. It was so dark out and we had the lights on in the kitchen which really cast an unfavorable picture of the mushroom. Think wrinkly old man. Right. So, I decided not to showcase that picture, but instead opted for a picture I took of it while it was still in the oven cooking. I passed it along to my new best friend — the great photo-editing program, for a little bit of revision. I played around with the effects and gave it a “glow” and “soft focus” look. Still looks very weird, but I’m gonna roll with it anyway.

Sunglasses strongly advised.

Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms With Lime-Mayo Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients:

18 Crimini mushrooms; cleaned and stems removed

Olive oil

S & P

6.5 oz. crab meat (I used the kind in a tin)

5 grape tomatoes; diced

1 T. chopped red onion

2 T. mayonnaise, preferably homemade

8 squirts Sriracha sauce

2 T. shredded Fontina cheese (or any other cheese you have laying around)

1 T. chopped green onion; for garnish

Lime-Mayo Sauce

1/4 C. mayonnaise

1 lime; juiced

In a small bowl, mix the mayo and lime juice together. Done! Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet and massage with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Arrange them in rows to be ready for filling.

In a small bowl, combine the crab meat, tomatoes, red onion, mayonnaise, sriracha sauce, and salt and pepper. Using a small spoon, fill each mushroom with the crab mixture. Top each with some cheese. Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil on top of each mushroom before putting in the oven to cook for about 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the mushrooms have softened. Garnish with chopped green onion and serve with the lime-mayo!

BTW, you may find yourself with extra crab meat mixture. That’s okay. Eat it tomorrow as a snack with chips. Yum.

This is what I made today.

I call them my Applewood Bacon-Wrapped Chick-eesy Bites. It actually started off as an experiment and then ended up tasting really good! Don’t you just love it when that happens? Honestly, it’s one of my most favorite things about cooking — throwing things together that you may already have in your pantry or fridge and creating something truly unique and flavorful. I really encourage you to play around with the various ingredients you have laying around in your kitchen and see what you come up with. Don’t be nervous. Don’t ever be nervous.

Applewood Bacon-Wrapped Chick-eesy Bites

Serves 4 as an appetizer; 2 as a meal

8 chicken tenders; pounded thin

S & P

Smoked paprika

8 thin slices Monterey Jack cheese

2 T. chopped green onion

4 slices applewood bacon; cut in half to make 8

8 toothpicks; submerged in water (this keeps them from not flaring up during the cooking process)

Vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. After you have pounded the chicken thin, season both sides with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, massaging it in so that it’s evenly coated. Lay the chicken piece in front of you. Put one slice of cheese in the middle of the chicken. Sprinkle a few clippings of green onion on top of the cheese. Then, gently roll the chicken up into a bundle. Grab a slice of bacon and wrap it around the chicken, using a toothpick to secure. Repeat with the rest of the chicken.

Using an oven-safe pan, on medium-high heat, brown the chicken with vegetable oil on both sides until the bacon is crispy. Turn off the heat and place the entire pan into the oven to finish cooking for another 7-10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

A birds-eye view of le poulet.

Until next time.

Provecho!

XO,

Steph