Mushroom Party! Those Eryngiis and Maitakies know what's up.

Saturday night we had ourselves a little mushroom party. Well, really we were just experimenting with mushrooms, but why not make it into a party too? We have a smoker and we use it quite often to cook all kinds of amazing cuts of meat. I have to say that although meat is quite grand, one of my favorite things to put on the smoker is vegetables. Smoked corn on the cob, peppers and even onions have an amazing taste when thrown in and left to absorb the sweet and smoky flavors of hickory, cherry, mesquite and the like. Since we were already smoking ribs Saturday it was the perfect time to try smoked mushrooms.

I had an assortment of Eryngii (King Oyster), Maitake (Hen of the Woods), Portobello, Crimini, and White Button mushrooms that really needed to get used up.

To prepare them I cut them all about a third of an inch thick.

Mushroom amazingness!

We don't have any fancy attachments to our smoker, like a grill basket, so we had to make do. With some of the larger portobello and eryngii slices it was easy to lay them on the grill top, but for some of the smaller pieces that wouldn't work. A little handmade foil tray worked perfectly and was easy to clean up.

For our mushrooms we decided that all we wanted to use was olive oil, salt and a little pepper. We wanted to really be able to taste the mushrooms so we didn't use anything that would take away from their natural taste.

A quick basting with olive oil and we closed the lid to the smoker.

My mouth is watering...

We took them off as soon as they started to turn golden brown. And the results? AMAZING. The mushrooms were tender and juicy with a incredible flavor brought out by the mesquite. This was an insanely easy way to prepare mushrooms and I certainly think we did it in a way that allowed the mushrooms true taste to take the spotlight. We will definitely do this again!

We had leftover mushrooms after Saturday nights feast and decided that a great way to use up the leftovers was mushroom burgers. We diced up what we had left over and mixed it up with our hamburger meat, which made for one of my favorite homemade hamburgers to date. Delicious!