Oh so appetizing

It’s time to introduce you to my new best friend. The All-New Complete Cooking Light Cookbook, given to me by my secret santa. This cookbook is beautiful. Great photos, amazing recipes, and organized so well. I am in love.  The nice thing about Cooking Light is you can find all of their recipes on their website as well.  So it’s easy to email them to a friend if you find one you love!  Last week I went through the entire cookbook and bookmarked recipe after recipe, earmarking a few special ones for Tyler’s 24th birthday dinner. His birthday was Sunday but due to family engagements I wasn’t able to make the dinner until tonight. Oh man it did not disappoint! First course: stuffed mushrooms!

Stuffed Mushrooms (from Cooking Light)

Ingredients:

24 large button mushrooms (about 1 3/4 pounds)
Cooking spray
3 tablespoons chopped green onions
1 garlic clove, minced
4 ounces 50%-less-fat pork sausage (such as Jimmy Dean 50% less fat)
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup (2 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400°.

Clean mushrooms, and remove stems; finely chop stems.Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onions and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add sausage, and cook until browned, stirring to crumble. Add the reserved mushroom stems, red pepper, salt, and black pepper; sauté 2 minutes or until stems are tender. Remove from heat; stir in cream cheese and breadcrumbs. Stuff 1 tablespoon sausage mixture into each mushroom cap. Arrange mushroom caps in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray; sprinkle evenly with Parmesan. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until lightly golden and thoroughly heated.