Another trip back to childhood....

We would always have a week long family vacation in Panama City Beach, and it would include lots of.... you guessed it.... incredible SEAFOOD!!! One of my all time favorite seafood items has got to be oysters. Raw, fried, baked.. you name it, I love it! But a real treat, was Oysters Rockefeller. There was only one restaurant there that served them, and of course one of the many hurricanes took care of that. I haven't seen them on a menu since! But they couldn't be that hard to make. Now since I live in Central Alabama and it is almost November, I couldn't just run out and purchase a dozen oysters on the half shell. So I used what I think is the oyster's next of kin.... the mushroom!!!

Mushrooms Rockefeller
recipe by me

5 slices bacon, cooked cooled and crumbled
1 - 9 ounce bag of fresh spinach leaves
12 large mushrooms
12 mushroom stems, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/3 cup heavy cream
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup plain bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400* and clean the mushrooms. Fry the bacon in a deep skillet. Remove and let the bacon drain, but do not empty the skillet. Saute the onion in the bacon grease for about 2 minutes, then add the garlic and saute for about 1 minute. Add the spinach to the skillet and let it cook down. Add the crumbled bacon and finely chopped mushroom stems back into the skillet and mix the ingredients. Add the cream, salt and pepper – bring to a boil. Add the cheese, and be sure that it is all melted into the mix before you remove the skillet from the heat. Remove from heat and stir in the bread crumbs. Stuff mushroom caps generously with the mixture. Bake in the preheated oven 25-30 minutes until lightly browned.

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This tasted exactly like it did back then, although I didn't try putting the whole thing on a saltine cracker. Hmm.... anyway! I can't wait to try it out on oysters and get the real effect!