Welcome! Coffee is over there (careful, gnomes swim in one of the pots), the pillow fort is usually pretty comfortable, and hopefully you’re not on a diet, or at least have some willpower to avoid trying to make all the recipes that get shared.
That’s an awesome story. Of the guilds I’ve been seriously involved with, one was a bunch of co-workers, so we saw each other a lot. Another, the one I really wanted to get to meet, was spread out way too much across the country, so it really put a bind on meetups. I know Mastadon here lives kind of close to me, and there are a couple other forum regulars over the years that are somewhat close; someday, I may try to arrange something. Maybe.
And on the subject of recipes, I need to make some stuffed mushrooms (since I have some mushrooms that I need to do something with):
12 whole fresh mushrooms
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel. Carefully break off stems. Chop stems extremely fine, discarding tough end of stems.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chopped mushroom stems to the skillet. Fry until any moisture has disappeared, taking care not to burn garlic. Set aside to cool.
When garlic and mushroom mixture is no longer hot, stir in cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, black pepper, onion powder and cayenne pepper. Mixture should be very thick. Using a little spoon, fill each mushroom cap with a generous amount of stuffing. Arrange the mushroom caps on prepared cookie sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the mushrooms are piping hot and liquid starts to form under caps.