Portobello-Prosciutto Burgers - Eh.

I have been soooooo dreading writing this blog post and that's probably why it's taken me two weeks to do it! This is the first recipe that I felt was just so-so. Don't get me wrong, it was GOOD but it wasn't mind-blowing good... and i really wanted it to be mind-blowing good. I mean c'mon what's better than prosciutto? In my opinion, nothing.

On to the recipe... PW calls for TWO portobello mushrooms per sandwich. If you've never seen a portobello, they are usually the size of your head. Well maybe not the size of YOUR head, but I have a pretty small head. If they aren't the size of your freakishly small head, then they are at least the size of your hand. Now take your hands and put them on top of each other, now put them inside of a bun. Do you really want to eat a sandwich with that much mushroom on it? No, you really don't. I'm a big fan of mushrooms and this was even too much mushroom for me. I would recommend cutting it down to one shroom per sandwich. You'll be glad you did.

PW recommends marinating the mushrooms in red wine. But it's totally optional. I tried it because she's usually always right (except when she tells you to put Apple Cider in Chicken and Dumplings... then she's wrong. VERY, very wrong). Okay, let's try this at home. If you make the recipe according to her specifications it calls for 8 portobello mushrooms. And she says to marinate these 8 small-head-sized mushrooms in 1 cup of red wine. Seriously try it. Okay, did you? good. You probably noticed that 1 cup of red wine is not enough to marinate 8 freakishly large mushrooms in. First of all, 8 of these won't fit in a normal sized bowl. Even if they did fit in a normal sized bowl when you pour in 1 cup of wine the only ones that are getting marinated are the ones at the very bottom of the bowl. So, it really doesn't work. Personally I would lay them out in a pan and drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Then i would flip them over and do it on the other side too. Let them sit like that for 30 minutes to one hour and I have a feeling it will be a trillion times better than the one cup of red wine.

You need to grill the mushrooms either on an outside grill or on one of those grill pans that you put on the stove. It was cold so I didn't want to go outside and grill (read: I have no idea how to light the thing) and I don't have one of those fancy grill pans.

Mental note: buy a fancy grill pan.

So I stuck them on a panini maker. I thought my reasoning was good.... it LOOKS like a grill and it gets hot like a grill so it must work like a grill. Wrong. It took FOREVER to cook those suckers.

So when they were finally done, I followed the rest of the recipe as it was written. Please, please, please don't skimp on the mayo/basil dressing that's in this recipe. That really did make the whole sandwich. Halfway through eating it, I pulled off one of the mushrooms because like i said before it was too much.

Next time I make these (if there is a next time) I will definitely try marinating them with the olive oil/balsamic combo. I don't even like balsamic vinegar, but I have a feeling it will be MUCH better than the red wine.

Stay warm and happy cooking :)