Have you ever gotten so excited about a new recipe you just tried that you brought a container of it to work and started force feeding it to people? No? Ummm. Me either. *avoids eye contact*

Seriously, though. This Mushroom Ceviche is revolutionary. At least, it was to me. I’ve made marinated/pickled mushrooms in the past. They are delicious. But these are mushrooms that are basically prepared ceviche style, and I am telling you right now I was so pleased with how mine turned out I… well… I got a little twitchy when other people tried to eat some, too. And when it was time to clean up the kitchen and I saw that someone had taken the rest of the bowl away, I was all…

Of course, then I returned to (relative) sanity and realized that I have the recipe and can therefore make more. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE.

And also, I can share it with you! Everyone wins. There’s a fair amount of prep work for this, but I promise you, it’s worth it.


Equipment:
Knife and cutting board
Large pot and strainer
Large mixing bowl
Spoon for mixing
Meez en place containers of some sort
Blender or food processor (optional)

Ingredients:
3 C Cremini mushrooms, cleaned, cut in half or in quarters (depending on how big they are) and then cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/3 C Celery, 1/4 inch dice
1/3 C Red onion, 1/4 inch dice, soaked in hot water for 5 minutes and then drained (takes some of the bite out)
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp Hot sauce (To start. Keep it handy because you might want to adjust it later.)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 C Fresh lime or lemon juice (I used a half and half mixture.)
1 T Olive oil
1/4 C Red bell pepper, julienned
1/4 C Green bell pepper, julienned
1 Jalapeno, seeded and minced
Kalamata olives, quartered, for garnish
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Blanch the mushrooms in boiling, lightly salted water for 30 seconds. Drain.

Combine the celery, onion, and mushrooms.

Puree the garlic, salt, pepper, hot sauce, oregano, lime/lemon juice, and olive oil until well mixed. Note: I actually just minced my garlic up really finely and then smashed it a little bit with the side of my knife on the cutting board and then mixed it into the rest of the marinade ingredients instead of going to the trouble of dirtying up a blender.

Toss with the mushroom mixture.

Adjust the seasoning. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Drain and toss with the julienned bell peppers and jalapeno. Note: I actually didn’t totally drain it. There’s some liquid that comes out of the mushrooms, and combined with that marinade it’s just really yummy. You can decide how “wet” you want your ceviche to be.

Garnish with the olives.

And that’s it, folks. We served it as part of a cold salad plate with this (kinda boring, to be honest) tomato and onion salad that someone else in my group made. I had this amazing plating idea involving homemade tortilla chips and it all got blown to  hell when Chef said we had to plate both salads together with this dumb piece of kale. Effing kale. Go away!

Anyhoots, you can serve yours with tortilla chips if you want. Or on a taco. Or just eat it out of the bowl with a spoon while inhaling Orange is the New Black with your eyeballs pretty much any other way that sounds good to you. Hint: The longer this sits in the marinade, the more flavor it absorbs so if you can make it the night before and let it hang out overnight, do eet!

Also! If you’re not a fan of onion, or can’t eat it for whatever reason, you could substitute with some other vegetable. Carrots marinate well. You could cut them into 1/4 inch matchsticks. Or if you still want something with a little bit of  bite, use radish slices. Just keep it fresh and you can’t go wrong!

And now that you’ve stuck it out to the end of the post… I have details on the promised giveaway!

It’s a little one. I did some shopping at the I Heart Denver store downtown Wednesday night, and I saw all these cute items that made me think of you all. So, I decided to pick up a couple of things and give them away. See how I am? I’m a nice girl.

The first item is this adorable strawberry tea towel from Counter Couture.

And the second is this little notebook from… I can’t remember. Another Denver based company that makes stationery and whatnot. I had a beer or two at dinner after my shopping trip. Don’t judge me.

So… there will be two winners! All you have to do to enter is leave a note in the comments on this post telling me about something you’ve eaten recently that got your knickers all in a twist like this ceviche did for me. Easy, right? I may also throw some other random goodies in the packages because in addition to nice, I am also unpredictable.

The winners will be picked at random and I’ll announce their names next Wednesday, August 13th.

Get after it!