Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

So I have made this recipe a number of times, so I'm not sure it qualifies as an experiment per say but I did use larger mushrooms than I usually do, so I'm counting it. Besides the larger than usual mushrooms, the other thing I did differently this time was use pre-peeled fresh garlic rather than buying garlic and peeling it myself. It's a little bit of a cheat, but I can accept that. I also forgot to put the garlic in the bread crumbs that I roasted for the tops, but I don't think it altered the end taste. I use a recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Make Ahead Recipe book and I've altered it a little over the years. First, I make double the goat cheese and thyme filling because I feel like there is just not enough if you only make the prescribed amount - and really, is there such a thing as too much cheese? I didn't think so.

To start, you pulse the bread in a food processor and toss it with some oil, salt and pepper (and garlic when you aren't having a brain fart and forgetting things). Then you put them on a baking sheet in the oven for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally and then you set them aside to cool. Next comes roasting the mushroom caps. Toss the mushroom caps with oil and garlic with salt and pepper and put them gill side down on a rimmed baking sheet. They stay in the oven until they release their juices and then you use tongs to turn them over (trust me on this one - do not try your fingers or some strange use of two forks or anything else) and bake them for another 10 minutes and then take them out and let them drain and cool a bit. While they are cooling, you can mix up the goat cheese filling. Leave the goat cheese out while you are roasting the breadcrumbs and the mushrooms so it is soft enough to mix up. 8oz of goat cheese, 2 tbs of olive oil and 2tbs of fresh minced thyme.

You put the goat cheese mixture into a bag - the cook book recommends a plastic baggie, but I recently bought disposable icing bags and I love them and have been using them for everything - and then you snip off the edge of the bag and you can pipe the mixture into the mushrooms. If you are going to finish them right away, you can put them onto a baking sheets to do this. If you are going to finish them later, you can put them in a casserole dish with a cover (if there are too many to fit in one layer, you can separate the layers with wax paper or parchment). When you have finished piping in the filling, sprinkle bread crumbs all over the top.

Now the best part about this recipe, besides how good it tastes, is that it can keep up to three days in the fridge before being finished, so you can really make it ahead and it's awesome. I made these for a dinner party the day before the party, so I didn't have to worry about it the next day. To finish the mushrooms they go back into the oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. These always go first at dinner parties and at book club they were gone before everyone had even arrived. The larger mushrooms worked well, but my only complaint is that it made this two bites instead of one easy bite. I think if you are eating a sit down dinner that would be fine, but for finger foods, I think you might want to use the smaller mushrooms.