Last night we made Grilled Portobello Spinach Salad from The Skinnytaste Cookbook.” This was another super-easy weeknight dinner with tons of flavor. Here’s how it went:

The first step was to mix up the marinade. Not much work involved here, other than chopping up a little garlic, but I did make one slight change to the recipe. Rather than mix the marinade in a bowl, add the mushroom caps, and toss to coat, I put the mushrooms in a shallow glass pan, mixed the marinade in a mixing cup, and poured it over the tops and bottoms of the mushroom. I think this might have helped the marinade soak in better, especially when I poured it onto the bottom of the mushrooms and let them sit, as the bottoms are a bit porous.

The next step was to make the dressing for the spinach salad, which took no time at all.  I put the spinach in a large bowl, added the dressing, and tossed the spinach until it was well coated.

The last step was to cook the mushrooms. I put our grill pan over medium heat – at least eventually; I started on medium-high, which was a little too hot, but did create some nice grill marks! I cooked the mushrooms for about five minutes per side, basting frequently as the recipe instructs. I then sliced the caps, plated the salad, sprinkled on some slices, sun-dried tomatoes and shaved parmesan, and laid the mushrooms on top. All told, dinner took well under 30 minutes to make.

This dish was really a great combination of flavors – earthy mushrooms, sweet tomatoes, salty cheese, slightly bitter spinach – and light, but satisfying. We’re going to keep this one in mind whenever our work schedules are a little crazy and we want a quick dinner, or whenever we’re in the mood for something vegetarian, or whenever we just want something truly delicious!