Trying to eat healthy, I joined a few of my friends in giving meatless Monday a go. Not a big deal in switching to a full veggie meal here and there.

Pizza can be meatless. In fact my all-time favorite is the primavera white they sell at That’s Italian. It’s mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, Ricotta cheese and spinach.

Completely delish! But maybe not a true healthy choice.

There are plenty of pasta dishes that can be made without meat. I like substituting eggplant, zucchini and squash for those dishes.

While shopping for options I picked up an item I have not used in a long time – Portobello mushrooms.

I thought I would try to make a traditional steak with black beans and rice dinner and use the large mushroom caps in place of the steak.

I am such a genius for thinking this. It was the BEST EVER and so simple to cook.

I got out my handy cooking pan, placed it on the stove top and turned the heat to medium-high. I used a teaspoon of olive oil and a sliver of butter in the pan. As the butter melted and mixed with the oil, I sprinkled a little salt and pepper over the sliced mushroom caps and tossed them into the pan.

That’s about it. Well, almost.

As the mushrooms became plump and soaked in the oil and butter, I added ¼ cup of red wine to deglaze the pan. (I measured out 2 cups of wine. I’m sure you can guess what I did with the extra).

IT WAS PHENOMENAL, juicy, tasty, thick portions of sliced caps. It even looked like a steak.

I always make my rice in a rice cooker so that is a no-brainer. As I’ve written before, I use canned black beans but make them my own with added spices and herbs. They end up tasting like my mom’s homemade black beans.

The mushrooms were so good I made them again. This time instead of rice and beans as my sides I made cauliflower rice (my own version) and roasted corn (again my own version).

For the cauliflower rice I simply tossed the cauliflower in Italian dressing and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I set the oven to 375 degrees and roasted it in a shallow pan for 30-40 minutes. Once roasted, the cauliflower was tossed into my food processor and I kept pulsing it down until it looked like rice grains.

I placed it in a bowl and added a little bit of butter and parmesan cheese and lightly mixed it.

For the corn, I removed the husk and slathered the corn with butter. Then I sprinkled it with parmesan cheese, Italian season blend herbs, a little garlic and pepper. I wrapped the corn in tinfoil and placed it in the oven at the same temperature I was using to roast the cauliflower. I left the corn in the oven while I finished my cauliflower rice so it likely stayed in for 45-50 minutes.

I served up my mushrooms, corn and cauliflower.

Meatless Monday second round success story. It was incredibly tasty and again so simple.

I eat a lot of cauliflower but that was the first time I made a rice version. It was fun to think of creative and tasty way to use ingredients. I have a friend who has a gluten allergy and he makes his pizza crust out of roasted cauliflower. Another friend makes creamy cauliflower grits.

YUM

Of course now I am on a mission to invent cool and succulent meals for meatless Mondays. I’ll keep you posted about the successes and failures.

My oven roasted mushrooms were disastrous…messed them up pretty bad. Well, truth be told, I FORGOT I was roasting them. Burned doesn’t even begin to describe them.

If you missed my tip for quick black beans find it here: coastalcourier.com/archives/87526.