Saturday, November 17, 2012

Wild Mushroom Cream Sauce

1 lb wild mushrooms, trimmed and chopped coarsely
1 Tbs butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp thyme, chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan

1) In a medium saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring until soft, 3 to 4 minutes. 
2) Add the garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. Cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. 
3) Add the cream, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. 
4) Add the Parmesan, and adjust the seasonings to taste.
5) Serve over cooked pasta. Let rest for two minutes and serve.

Review: We've been doing a lot of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. They have a lot of great frozen meals that are both healthy and economically priced. This has been the death of my blog. On the other hand, they also tend to sell all sorts of random, awesome things. These types of things are typically sold for a limited period of time, so I grab them when I see them. However, I then end up with a motley collection of items in the cupboard. It's become my goal to eat my way through this mess and tonight I used three finds from Trader Joe's:


Of course, none of these were purchased at the same time, nor were they ever intended to be put together. However, I had the idea that a wild mushroom cream sauce would be great over gnocchi. I hit google to find recipes and then combined some ideas and made this recipe (an original?!). It turned out wonderfully tasty, though I initially had too much sauce for so little gnocchi. After two minutes, it congealed nicely and no longer looked like soup. I think it might also be tasty if it was made with gruyere instead of Parmesan.


Now, what to do with the jar of salted caramel sauce?