Portobello mushrooms stuffed with wilted spinach and blue cheese

 Hello Dear Reader,

As promised, tonight's veggie special! Not a cheap supper, nor with 75g of Danish Blue cheese each, is it low in calories buy oh my! this is totally stunning! I ate a version of this in Cafe Rouge but they served it with Raclette, which is a Swiss melting cheese. I think this would work with our usual half fat cheddar but the blue cheese is so powerfully tasty that we just didn't need meat with this recipe.

You don't need portions as large as ours. The mushrooms came in packs of four, we felt two each were too few and to be honest, four each were too many! The mushrooms, onions, garlic and spinach have very few calories but the indulgent butter and cheese made this calorific and delicious. It's also high in vitamins A and C, calcium and iron, has 25% of the daily required protein and is low in carbs. All that has to be worth the calories and cost!!!

Here is what you will need/I used:

150g pack of Danish Blue Cheese - you could use a lower fat cheese alternative - 99p and 265 calories each
2 heaped tablespoons of butter - 10p - 102 calories each.
1 200g bag of spinach - 89p - 23 calories each
2 finely chopped red onions - 22p - 40 calories each
2 packs of large field mushrooms - 1.98 - 22 calories for 4 each.
6 cloves of finely minced garlic - 5p 
1 little gem lettuce - 20p - 7 calories each
1/2 punnet of cherry tomatoes 45p - 20 calories each.
1/2 cucumber - 20p - 11 calories each

To make this:

1. Heat the grill
2. Clean the mushrooms and remove the stalks - I just trimmed them short.
3. Heat the butter in a pan
4. Brush mushrooms with a little butter and place under the grill - just long enough to soften them.
5. Add the onions and garlic to the pan - saute until soft
6. Add spinach - if ready washed - do not add any water
7. Arrange the spinach, onions and garlic on top of each mushroom
8. Slice, crumble or spoon the blue cheese on top
9.Place under the grill for just long enough to melt the cheese.
10. Serve with salad. 

Total cost £5.08 - per person £2.53. Calories per person 490! Ouch, ouch , ouch! Good job that tomorrow is a fast day, too many days like this and we'll be fat (or if you know me and I can't hide the fact, fatter!). It just shows how the calories can add up and it's basically little more than a salad! It's expensive but I looked at what something similar would cost in a restaurant and most were charging around £9.95. I beat them.

I'm now off to run around in the dark and rain in some kind of recompense for my highly calorific supper! 

Over to you Dear Reader. What do you do with blue cheese, or mushrooms or spinach? Who loves spinach as much as I do. I can happily eat it in anything! Who else is finding it hard to keep down the costs when keeping down the carbs? Who else has fast days to compensate for the other days?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx