Mushroom Pasta...

Today I got a craving for mushrooms and for pasta.  Usually I get cravings on my 5:00pm drive home from work.  This is usually my time to get out of "work mode" before I get home to my family to finish job #2 of feeding and spending time with the ones I love most, my family.  Usually as I am thinking, praying or jamming out to some good tunes I get hungry and thus the cravings begin.  When this happens I am usually in the middle of no where.  The town where I work has an excellent grocery store with a wide selection of foods to choose from.  There I would have a wide selection of mushrooms.  Porcini?  Shitake?  Crimini?  Take your pick or choose all of them!

 In the small town I live in we have several grocery stores and the one that is closest to my house only has button mushrooms but they will have to do.  I really wish my cravings would begin around 4:00pm so I could go to the grocery store with more variety but it never works out that way.  Also, I suppose it would be nice if I knew where to go for mushroom hunting.  In my area there are many mushrooms that grow wild and can be gathered.  The ones I am most familiar with are "wisi" and "morels".  Actually I think fancy restaurants serve morels so they probably can be grown as well.  Anyway someday I will venture out, keep it real and hunt for some mushrooms.  And hopefully I find morels and I will make this pasta again and it will taste even better!  Of course they aren't in season right now but I am betting you can freeze them.  When I was younger my mom had a friend that would always give her morels and they were the most delicious things you have ever eaten.  You can buy wisi at the local farmer's market but the morels are a different story.  If you know where they grow you aren't telling and you only get morels given to you if you are an awesome friend or you have something to trade for.  Mom used to trade our farm fresh eggs for these mushrooms.  I do have a good friend that knows where they grow.  I think someday she will take me, although a blindfold of some sort may be involved.

So tonight I needed a quick and dirty mushroom pasta.  My DH cannot fathom why I wouldn't put meat in pasta but I am really don't eat meat that often.  What I mean by that is I probably only eat red meat once during the week.  I live in small town Oklahoma so only eating meat once a week is really not that often.  Actually it's downright weird!  Anyway so here's how my mushroom pasta went down.

Boil some water.  Put the lid on it so it will come up to a boil much quicker...salt the water and add whatever type of dry pasta you prefer...I perfer thin spaghetti.  Boil for 8-10 minutes...



While the pasta is cooking...chop up about a pound of mushrooms...oh and be sure to take plenty of red wine breaks while chopping...

Put some extra virgin olive oil in a medium skillet on medium high heat and add mushrooms.  Cook for 5 minutes or so.  Mince 3 large garlic cloves, or less if you don't like garlic but I love garlic.  Serioulsy roasted garlic and fried bacon are gifts from God!  Eat it!  Anyway, add the garlic to the mushrooms and cook until fragrant...



Add small container of half & half...a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice and a little flour to thicken...turn heat to low and cook until cream is the consistency that you prefer...

Add cooked spaghetti...

Add some chopped parsley...

Mix and combine.  Here I would also add some parmesan cheese but my small grocery store doesn't sell the good stuff and I couldn't bear to buy the sprinkled stuff for pizza.  It just doesn't taste the same...

This pasta is quick and easy.  Only took 15-20 minutes from start to finish and it was delicious!  But let's keep it real...if sipping of wine isn't involved this really could be a ten minute meal!  On the agenda for tomorrow, I'll be running 6 miles and this carb heavy meal is sure to give me some pep in my step...

Happy Friday!











Real cheese is not always orange...

I really love cheese.  All kinds but my favorite is extra sharp cheddar.  It's my 10:00am snack of choice, paired with some wheat thins.  As usual, I do my grocery shopping for work at the beginning of the week. I eat every two hours so at work I MUST have groceries or I become the co-worker that eats every one's food and let's be honest, nobody likes that person.  While looking for some extra sharp cheddar I notice there is a particular brand that is made from grass fed cows.  Surprisingly it isn't that expensive so I buy it.  Now I've had the pleasure of eating many different types of cheese.  Feta, brie and goat cheese usually are white.  Cheddar, colby jack and velveeta is usually an orange color.  So as you can imagine when I opened my grass fed cow sharp cheddar cheese in my office today (it had a black wrapping) it wasn't orange!  I kinda freaked out a little because I was really craving a nice sharp (orange) cheddar but I went ahead and tried it.  It was the most delicious sharp cheddar I had ever eaten!  It was so sharp and smooth that I only ate a small amount because that's all I needed to get my fix.  So I decided to do some research on orange cheese.  Why is it orange?  Obviously I realize that velveeta is in many ways fake cheese but it's so good I just accept it and move on.  But I've never considered my sharp cheddar...and the fact that it is orange.

The dying of the cheese started long ago in England.  Milk from grass fed cows has a higher level of beta carotene in the Spring and Summer and in the Winter the milk has less beta carotene so the color varies throughout the year.  The dye they use for the orange cheese is called "annatto" which is made from the seeds of a specific tree.  So I suppose that is still considered "natural" but it bothers me that people that sell cheese assume I would find orange cheese more appealing than cheese in it's more natural state.  Also, why haven't I considered this before?  This just reaffirms my belief that I am a product of a world that wants me to be dependant upon it.  Why else would I have a mini freak out when I discover my cheese really isn't orange?

And really why do I care if my cheese is orange?  Well I've been eating a lot of deer meat lately that was killed by my cousin and combine that with the fact that I just read the first Hunger Games book and got this cookbook for Christmas, I've decided to care.  So now I have nightmares of being left in a world where the government rations food and I must rely on my own self for my sustenance. Wasn't this how the world once was?  When my Great Grandmother was little did she eat orange cheese?  Probably not.  Guess I need to take a hunter's safety course...pray for a good Oklahoma growing season in 2012 and learn how to make cheese?  I suppose I should find a cow first...or just find someone local to buy it from. 

Someday when my dh and I retire (a short 30 or so years from now), we plan on traveling the world and eating many different types of food from other places.  I'm really looking forward to all the cheese I'm going to eat.  I imagine the cheese I will eat will be smooth, crumbly, stinky and delicious but hopefully not orange.

Yes, I realize that I should know that cheese isn't naturally orange and maybe I always have known this...I just didn't care?  Didn't question it?  Just ate it because it's what is readily available?  Not sure but I think the older I get, the more I question things in life.  It's a good thing...