I love stuffed mushrooms, and they work wonderfully well as a starter especially when served with something like ciabatta or foccacia bread with balsamic vinegar and flavoured olive oils. This recipe can be made slightly more difficult if you want to work a little harder, but to be honest whether you use fresh garlic, herbs and cream cheese, or a ready mixed garlic and herb cream cheese makes very little difference; in fact the pre-prepared cheese has slightly more flavour I would say, as the flavours have infused the cheese. If you don't have any stale bread or breadcrumbs, simply rip a slice of bread into pieces and place it in the oven while it is warming, once the bread is dried you can make breadcrumbs by crumbling the pieces. The quantities shown in this recipe serve 4 as a starter when served with bread.

Ingredients

• 4 Flat (open) mushrooms
• 200g Cream cheese with garlic and herbs
• 40g Breadcrumbs

Method

1. Wipe or peel the mushrooms as necessary, and remove the stalk.
2. Spread the cheese evenly in the open cups of the mushrooms (cheese on the gill (black) side).
3. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs.
4. Place the mushrooms cheese-side uppermost onto a baking tray and place in an oven at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes, or until the breadcrumbs are golden and the mushrooms are cooked.
5. Serve immediately.