Yesterday was my first day of keeping up with making/cooking something at home atleast once 6 out of 7 days. Guess what? Yesterday was 1 out of 7 days allowed. Haha. The thing is, B and I went grocery shopping and he smelled something “awesome”. It was food from the Pei Wei restaurant nearby and he wanted to eat there. And thus, we had dinner out yesterday. The worst part is that the food at the restaurant was not even worth talking about. Maybe it was the dishes we ordered, except the Spring Rolls. How can you go wrong with them anyway?

Tonight, I definitely had to make sure that I made something at home. I had had this amazing Mushroom Tortellini in Mushroom Cream Sauce at a local restaurant some time ago and I wanted to recreate that mushroomy, creamy, saucy taste of that amazing dinner entree. I did not have any mushroom tortellini on hand but did have some whole wheat linguini, some fusilli, and some macaroni at home. I still don’t know what pastas go with what kind of sauces or if there is even a rule but my instincts told me to go with the linguini.

Cooking the pasta:
Add salt to water and boil water. Add pasta once water is boiling, cook until done. Refer to the package instructions for amount of water and salt required (these are different depending on the kind of pasta).

- I remember someone discussing whole wheat pasta at work once. They had said that it gets quite “gooey” and is not as tasty as the regular pasta. I added some olive oil to the boiling pasta to keep it from getting gooey.

Once the pasta is al dente, drain it under cold water to stop cooking the pasta. Just add a little bit of oil, less than a tablespoon, and toss gently.

While you leave your water to boil, start making the sauce.

For the Mushroom Cream Sauce:

1 pkg sliced mushrooms ( I used baby bella, but I guess you can use any kind of mushroom)
2 tbsp garlic (I love LOADS of garlic!)
2 tbsp all purpose flour or maida
1 3/4th cup milk
5 tbsp butter (this can be as buttery as you would like, 4 tbsp was fine but I added another one because ehhhh nothing is as good as butter, right?)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese
Salt 1 tbsp or less, to taste
Freshly crushed black pepper about 1-2 tbsp depending on how much pepper you like
Parmesan cheese to garnish
Parsley to garnish

- Melt butter at medium heat and add mushrooms. Try to keep the mushrooms as separate from each other. Do not crowd them (Thanks Julie and Julia!)
- Flip them to brown both sides well
- Add the olive oil and cook some more. Once the mushrooms are done, start adding the flour.
- Add the flour in increments of 1/2 tbsps if you can. Add a little stir and let the flour blend in with the butter. Add a little and stir until done with all flour
- Right after adding the flour, add 3/4th cup milk, stir and let the milk mix in with the butter, mushrooms and flour. At this time the sauce will start turning creamy.
- Mix in the salt and crush fresh black pepper. Note – Do not add a lot of salt, the butter will reduce too, causing the sauce to be salty anyway
- Add another 1/2 cup of milk and let reduce a little and then eventually add another half cup and let the sauce thicken and reduce
- Add the shredded mozzarella and let it melt into a heavenly creamy mixture

Mushroom Cream Sauce, Pasta

- The sauce is done! Garnish with some parsley. Totally fine if you skip it. I just like it because it makes the dish look pretty

Because this is linguini, I don’t like to mix it with sauce before serving. Add linguini on a plate, top it with the mushroom cream sauce, and garnish with freshly shredded parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. Enjoy on the patio like we did!