Life’s not to short to stuff a mushroom!

Shirley Conran said that life was too short to stuff a mushroom; she didn’t invent the first part what became a catch phrase, it goes back to the nineteenth century at least and has been used with different endings many, many times.  ‘Life is too short to work so hard’, said Vivien Leigh; Benjamin Disraeli a century before commented ‘life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervour.’ Even Karl Marx used the phrase ‘After all life is too short to be anything but happy,’ which I completely agree with.

If you do find that life is long enough to stuff a mushroom, and I really love stuffed mushrooms, then here is a National Mark recipe; the measurements are not precise because it is a left-overs dish – really you could use anything you have to stuff a mushroom:

• one very large mushroom per person, or several smaller ones, unpeeled but with stalks removed
• chopped fried onion
• parsley
• white breadcrumbs
• more white breadcrumbs, browned in a pan or in the oven
• remains of fish, meat or poultry finely chopped
• tomato purée
• butter
• olive oil

1. sprinkle the mushrooms with olive oil and put them on a dish, undersides up, in teh oven on a medium heat for just a few minutes
2. meanwhile make the stuffing with onion, parsley, white breadcrumbs, fish, meat or poultry plus the chopped up mushroom stalks
3. bind with a little tomato purée
4. put the stuffing into the mushrooms and top with the browned breadcrumbs and a pat of butter (or olive oil if you prefer)
5. brown in the oven for 15 minutes