Festive amuses and a mushroom burger

Breakfast: same as yesterday, scrambled egg with 2 slices serrano ham.

Lunch: almost the same as last night. I finished off the vegetable soup and followed that with mango and yoghurt. This is nowhere near the amount of food the dietician is expecting me to eat. As a reminder, an advisory lunch is 500 g of cooked vegetables pureed into a soup with some bouillon; 50-100 gram of a protein source such as meat, chicken, fish, egg, nuts or cheese; a salad with an oil and vinegar dressing and about 150 grams of fresh fruit.

Dinner: It should be a soup, with meat/chicken or fish and vegetables
A generous 100-150 gram of a protein source with 200-300 gram of vegetables, and a salad with oil and vinegar dressing.

What it turned out to be was a selection from Albert Heijn's Christmas goodies.

First, a trio of amuses: a miniature meatball, salmon mousse and some goat cheese. I guess that accounts for around 20 gram of protein food?


Then, a duo of soups, one being tomato with mascarpone, the other being a gorgozola and white wine, I think it was:


Then, two fish amuses from a selection of four. I had the prawns and a white fish, and Paul had the salmon and the other white fish. These I had to bake in the oven for about 8 minutes, and obviously something baked onto the little dishes.


The reason I bought all of these strange things was for the dishes, of course. Much cheaper than buying them in a kitchen shop, and they come filled with goodies, to boot!

OK, onto the main, which was a proper portion size of cheese and mushroom burger:


What I did here was remove the central stem of two portobello mushrooms, and I grilled them until they were done before I cooked the burgers.

Then I dressed the mushrooms with onion and tomato as you would do for a bun.

The burgers I made with minced beef, and I chopped the mushroom stems into it as well. If you want to make burgers at home, use a lot more seasoning than you think you need; something about that minced beef just absorbs it and it can be pretty tasteless if you aren't prepared.

So I grilled the burgers and topped the mushrooms with them, and then added a slice of cheese and put them in the oven. I don't know that lightly matured gouda is the best cheese for this. I think that's better eaten raw. Next time I'll use the fully mature.