It’s about 85 degrees here in Chicago and we’re standing at the gateway of an idyllic summer weekend. If you think at all like me,  you need to remember to buy some charcoal on my way home tonight.

Grilling is a simple summer essential. Clean-up is a cinch, it cuts out unnecessary oils and fats and it infuses food with a taste that pops out the flavor of eternal August.  If my team is going to get the fire going, we’re probably going to grill every part of the meal from corn to peaches. To mushrooms.  If you’re looking at the beauty below, you’re beginning to understand why.

It started a couple weeks ago when my partner in crime and I took a 2 hour drive from a tiny Wicker Park apartment up up up into the woods, dunes and clear waters of coastal Michigan to visit friends and particularly the Holland Farmer’s Market, a legend of locally grown goodness. We saw chickens (and a turkey).  We visited the apples I’ll be making pies with in a couple short months. We sat in deck chairs and and let our skin get fully saturated with sunlight. It was pretty great.

And then we made these mushrooms.  More specifically, then we made UP these mushrooms with two fresh portabella caps and whatever we could find in the cottage fridge. This included all of the following:

• freshly chopped asparagus
• farmer’s cheese
• olive oil
• 1  leftover piece of bacon from the morning’s pancake breakfast
• parsley
• about a handful of leftover vegetarian spicy ground “beef”
• green onions
• garlic salt
• pepper

They were the kitchen sink of stuffed mushrooms. And they were DELICIOUS. That’s my favorite thing about stuffing mushrooms of all sizes- chop it small enough and include enough stuff to hold the mixture together and you’ve got a really good meal.  I brushed the bottoms with olive oil and they went straight onto the grill only to come off about ten minutes later with that elusive, Elysian summer-in-Saugatuck taste.