Mushroom-Thyme Appy

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20TH, 2010

3 stars (out of 5 - pretty tasty, but not absolutely amazing)

I decided to make another vegetarian slow-cooker recipe, and thought that this appetizer looked good (also, I'm trying to acquire a taste for mushrooms). It was quite good and pretty tasty - I particularly liked the tangy-ness that the wine added; however, it wasn't absolutely amazing. I think I would like to try this again with another herb... perhaps rosemary?

Ingredients*:

3 green onions, chopped
2 packages of mushrooms (2x 227g), roughly chopped
1/4 cup olive oil (a little bit less)
1 tsp dry thyme
1/4 tsp salt
Pepper, to taste
1/3 cup plain cream cheese
1/4 cup dry white wine
Baguette

{*Note. This is enough for quite a few people (see pics below), so if you are making it just for two people I would make only half of this.}

1. First, I chopped the green onions and added them to the slow cooker along with the olive oil, turning the slow cooker on "High".

2. While the green onions were being cooked, I chopped up the mushrooms. I used a food processor, so they were chopped up very finely; however, with the length of time that they cook in the slow cooker, you could probably chop them up fairly coarsely.

3. I then added the mushrooms, thyme, and salt to the slow cooker, and stirred the mixture well. I switched the slow cooker onto "Low" and let the mixture cook for 6 hours.

4. After the mushrooms were very soft, I again stirred the mixture thoroughly. If there is any excess liquid, it should be drained.

5. ... and added the mushroom mixture, cream cheese, pepper, and white wine to my food processor, and mixed until smooth.

6. I placed it in a bowl, and served with baguette (you can toast these if you choose).

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good appy. It was easy enough to make, although I wasn't really sure why the slow-cooker was necessary. I felt that you could cook the mushrooms on the stove just as easily, and they would be ready in 10 minutes. I actually quite liked the flavour, even though it has a very strong mushroom taste. I just think that there might be a better herb to add to make it better. I would definitely recommend it, though!