Creamy Mushroom Pasta

One of the great things about going to the farmers market every weekend has been the unexpected food finds. Last weekend was my second time as a vendor at Woodlawn farmers market. I was located next to a mushroom vendor, Harvest Moon Mushrooms, who grows mushrooms right here in Portland! Jeff went over to buy a few that we could have in an omelette the next day. He asked what they recommended and he came back with these beauties! All their mushrooms are beautiful. And wow, they are delicious. We still had a few left and it looked like enough for a pasta dish so that’s what I made. This is sort of a no-recipe recipe that’s easy enough to put together without exact measurements, but I’ll put a recipe below regardless. 

The mushrooms here are Chestnut, Morels and Black Pearl (going clockwise). The mushroom guy made a point to eat all of the Black Pearl, don’t throw away the stem, it’s really tasty! The recipe below is one-pot cooking at its best. I made this in the morning since it was going to be a very hot day and it was easy to reheat for dinner. 

Speaking of the heat, this weekend is going to be a scorcher, my weather app has been showing anywhere from 104°-108° on Saturday. So I’m not sure if the market will be open or will have to change the hours, but I have a feeling it might not be happening, I’ll post to my Instagram stories and update the webpage if anything changes. 

One more thing, I added some fresh thyme and oregano on top of the pasta for the photos, but I added too much! The oregano was strong and overtook the rich umami flavors of the mushrooms, I wouldn’t add anything more than a bit of parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

Creamy Mushroom Pasta

• 1/2 lb pasta shells

• 2 cups mushrooms roughly chopped (Morels, Black Pearl and Chestnut mushrooms)

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 tablespoons salted butter

• 1/4 white wine or dry vermouth 

• Salt to taste

• 12 oz Alfredo sauce

If you don’t have a jar of Alfredo sauce:

• 8 oz creme fraiche

• 1/2 cup grated parmesan

In a large dutch oven bring water to boil and cook pasta as directed. Drain in colander and stir in a bit of olive oil to keep it from sticking, set aside. 

In the same pot heat the olive oil and butter until melted on a medium heat, add the chopped mushrooms and a pinch of salt, stir as needed for about 5-10 minutes, when mushrooms look about half way done, add the white wine, give a stir and let cook for another 5-10 minutes on a lower heat. Your mushrooms should be soft and tender at this point, if not let it cook a few more minutes.

If you’re using a ready made Alfredo sauce you can add it at this point, heat another 5 minutes or so. If not add the creme fraiche and parmesan cheese, stir to combine, add the pasta and heat a few more minutes.

Serve with a pinch or two of parmesan. 

Mushroom Lasagna

This Mushroom Lasagna is absolutely delicious. It’s the second time I’ve made it and even changing the types of mushrooms and cheese did not disappoint. I saw the recipe about two years ago on Adventures in Cooking and finally gave it a try. Mushroom, cheese and pasta generally are a good combination, still sometimes things sound good but are just meh. Not this time. It was wow! it’s so good! And it makes quite a bit too, even with four people we had leftover. It’s even better the second day.

I shopped at Trader Joe’s knowing they would have better prices on the cheese, but I would sacrifice mushroom selection. The last time I made this Mushroom Lasagna I had shopped at Whole Foods, and the selection for Ricotta cheese was slim, I had the choice to fork over $7 for one container (and you need two for this recipe), or get the low fat version at around $4+. They were all out of the 365 brand, and this seems to be an ongoing problem with Whole Foods lately, the shelves are bare! They started a new inventory system called order-to-shelf (OTS), which was designed and implemented a year ago (long before Amazon purchased them, so don’t blame Amazon as tempting as it is), the new system is good in that it’s cost-cutting, and will help prevent food spoilage from excess inventory going bad in the storage room, but damn, if you look at some of those photos, I haven’t seen it that bad here in Portland but I have experienced times where some fairly basic items normally in stock are just not there. Mostly in produce, like where’s the parsley? Hopefully now that it’s had some press Amazon will do something about this. 

The recipe is very forgiving in that you can add whatever mushrooms or cheese you have. The original recipe used a sharp cheddar, which I did the first time, but then I opted for Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio on the second time. Both were delicious so you can mix up whatever kind of shredded cheese you want.

When this came out of the oven yesterday it smelled so amazing, but then I thought, no way was this going on the blog, it just looked like a big heap of stuff in my old ugly-ass pyrex dish, but a day later and a few food styling tweaks, it looked presentable. There are certain foods, dishes, that really don’t lend themselves to sexy food. For example, raw mushroom, sexy! Cooked mushroom, er, um, cover me up please. I took some photos of the sliced mushrooms cooking on the stove and it looked so unappetizing I didn’t include it here. Smelled great though.

By the way, January marks my five year anniversary with Pixels + Crumbs blog. And guess what, my very first post was a mushroom post! Mushroom Soup. I remember how I labored over it, the whole thing seemed to take forever and I wondered if I’d gotten myself into something a bit crazy. It’s like hours of cooking, hours of food styling, photos and editing and writing. Well the writing gets a bit short because I’m completely burnt out at that point, ha ha. But I’ve kept this blog alive after five years. I don’t post as much as I used to, now it’s more of a monthly post, but I can’t seem to let it go. 

See you next month and thanks for stopping by.

Mushroom Lasagna

Mushroom Layer

• 1 large onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
• 6 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 6 ounces crimini mushrooms, sliced
• 2 ounces chantarelles, chopped (all mushrooms will work, I used only white button mushrooms and Crimini and it tasted great)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine

Cheese Layers

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 30 ounces ricotta cheese
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon fresh sage leaves chopped (or dried, but tastes better with fresh)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 pound (12 oz bag)  white cheddar, grated (or mixed cheeses)

Lasagna Layers

• 9 sheets dried lasagna noodles
• 1 lb crimini mushrooms, quartered
• 1 teaspoon olive oil on bottom of pan
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• pinch black pepper

For the mushroom layer, melt the butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Sautee onion and garlic in the butter until softened and transparent, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and olive oil and sauté for about 5 minutes, then add the white wine. Cook until most of the liquid is gone for an additional 5 minutes or so. Remove the mushrooms and onion, place in a small bowl and set aside to cool.

For the cheese layer, add 1/4 cup butter to the pan and allow it to melt. Add the flour, a little bit at a time, whisking constantly until a roux forms. Place the roux in a large bowl and add the ricotta cheese, milk, thyme, sage, oregano, black pepper, and salt. Set aside.

Toss the quartered crimini mushrooms with the olive oil and salt in a medium bowl and set them aside.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place some of the lasagna noodles in the water and allow to cook until slightly bendable, about 3-4 minutes, working in batches as necessary. Remove with tongs and place three of the noodles on the bottom of a roughly 9 x 13-inch rectangular casserole dish, keeping them in a flat even layer.

Spread 1/4 of the sautéed mushroom mixture over the noodles, then sprinkle with 1/4 of the grated cheddar cheese. Spread 1/4 of the ricotta mixture over the cheddar, then place 3 to 4 noodles in an even layer on top of the ricotta. Repeat until you have used all of the sautéed mushrooms, cheddar, and ricotta, but do not place noodles over the top and final layer of ricotta. Instead, evenly distribute the quartered mushrooms over the top and sprinkle with a pinch of black pepper. Place the pan on a baking sheet and place the baking sheet in the oven. Cook until the cheese is bubbly around the edges and the mushrooms on top have turned a deep brown and wrinkled, about 45-50 minutes. 

Adapted from Adventures in Cooking