New years recipelutions

[Deitz Dittrich]

My Wife and I wanted to spend more time together, go figure.  We tried to come up with the end all beat all best idea for spending time together enjoying each other’s company.  As many of you know, I love to cook, love to eat (a little too much unfortunately), but often do most of the cooking alone.  This year will be a little different. We have decided on a cooking night where we choose a new recipe that we have never tried.  Every other weekend, for the entire year.  24 new recipes that we’ll share with you.  I expect most will be good.   We are going to take pictures and include the recipe and process and also include each of our thoughts on how it turned out as well as what we could do to improve it.

Recipe #1 

Mushroom Lasagna

Items Needed

1 Cup Boiling water

1 Ounce of Dried Porcini (we used [PoorWordUsage])

1 Tbl Butter

2 Tbl olive oil

1 1/4 c(about 4)cup chopped shallots

4 oz portabella mushrooms

8 oz sliced button mushrooms

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 1/2 Tbl Thyme

6 cloves of garlic minced

1/2 cup white wine

1/3 cup(3 oz) 1/3 less fat cream cheese

2 Tbl chopped chives

3 cups reduced fat milk

1/4 cup flour

9 no boil lasagna noodles

1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Steps

1.Preheat oven to 350

2.Combine 1 cup boiling water with your dried mushrooms and let sit 30 mins.

3.Melt 1 Tbl butter and 1 Tbl oil over med/high heat... Add shallots and saute for about 3 mins, add your non dry mushrooms(button/portabella), also add salt and pepper.  Saute for an additional 6 mins.  Then add 3 cloves of minced garlic.  Saute about a min then add your 1/2 cup of wine.  Bring to a boil..Then cook an additional min or the liquid reduces some.  At this point remove from the heat, stir in cream cheese and chives, and add your [PoorWordUsage] mushrooms(SAVE THE WATER).

In a different sauce pan put 1tbl olive oil and 3 cloves of minced garlic.  saute about 30 seconds, add the water from the [PoorWordUsage] mushrooms, also add 2 3/4 cups of milk, and salt and pepper to taste... Combine remaining 1/4 cup milk with 1/4 cup flour and wisk together.  Add flour mixture to sauce, and constantly wisk till somewhat thickened.

Now the fun begins, in an 11 X 7 glass dish, spoon in 1/2 cup of the sauce.  Then layer 3 of the noodles on the bottom of the dish.  Spoon in 1/2 of your mushroom mixture then pour another 1/2 or slightly more sauce.  Again layer your final 3 noodles and cover with another 1/2 cup or slightly more of the sauce.. Sprinkle the top with your cheese and any chopped chives you may still have for color.  Bake at 350 for 45 mins.

Deitz’s Review-  4.5 out of 5 stars..... Keep in mind, I love mushrooms, so I knew this was going to be awesome.  In the beginning I was a bit overwhelmed by all the steps and the very short cook times before other ingredients were needed.  It’s a good idea to get all your stuff measured out before hand so that they are ready to go when called on... The flavor of this dish was fantastic.  We served it with a side of cheese bread that worked well.  The mushrooms have an awesome flavor, I was expecting more garlic flavor, being that there were 6 cloves in all, but to be honest they were hardly noticed.  

OK, if I loved it so much why not a full 5 stars from the Deitz Dude... well, I thought the Thyme was a bit overpowering.  While thyme is good, it covered too much of the other awesome flavors.  We used dry thyme, and I would bet had we used fresh it may have been different.  Next time I will only use about 1/2 of what the recipe called for.. AND THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME... I have grandiose plans of trying this with many wild Mushrooms(Oyster Mushrooms and Chantrelle)

Lastly- Do not be overwhelmed by the steps, I realize there are a lot of steps that are quite quick, but it really was not all that hard...  If you like Mushrooms, you need to try this!

Tiff’s Review - 5 stars

I’m also a mushroom lover and the flavor of this dish did not disappoint.  I am curious as to what the recipe would taste like with the various exotic mushrooms that the original recipe called for.  Like Deitz I look forward to “shrooming” to find the ingredients for next time.  While I tend to not be a fan of white sauce, this sauce was quite subtle.  

Spoken like a true cheesehead, my only comment is to ADD MORE CHEESE!!!  We put an extra quarter cup or so on top - I think it’d be tasty to add cheese between the layers, too. 

[ThunderLund78]

Cool idea and I love the dual review concept! Looking forward to seeing more posts.

[thirdeye]

Great idea and I like the fact you included tips.... and are going to review and score each recipe too. No doubt that at some point one of you will score one a 2 and the other one will score it a 5.

When you mentioned spending time together in the kitchen.... was it Henny Youngman or maybe Dangerfield that had the line: "My wife said she wanted to go somewhere she's never been before..... so I took her to the kitchen"

[LABS4ME]

Cool concept... looking forward to more reviews... it will be interesting to read the differences.

Good Luck!

Ken

[reinhard1]

love this thread!!!!my wife can cook but i do it all. wonderfull idea. i dont know if i can keep my distance or keep my mouth shut while she's cooking. i was pacing back and forth while she was making cookies with the grandkids this weekend. she still is working while i am retired. i like the idea always to try to spend time with each other. it's a sign of a loving relationship and a happy home. i'll be looking forward to your adventures. good luck.

[KEN W]

Neat idea.My wife and I are about 50-50 on cooking.She does a lot of the old style meals....I like to experiment and try something new.

We both like mushrooms,so will have to try that.

[Leaky]

Awesome!

[prov1900]

Cool idea! Look forward to your next submissions.

[Dark Cloud]

Need picts! Without pictures, it didnt happen...

[Deitz Dittrich]

Need picts! Without pictures, it didnt happen...

I had taken picts on my phone during the make process, but then noticed I had a SD card failure.. So, Final product is all that was got.

[Archerysniper]

Cool Idea and looks tasty Deitz thank you for shareing, whats the next date and time I know were you live

[Dark Cloud]

Lookin good DD! Im going to have to try this one with a bunch of diff wild shrooms.

A friend of mines mom makes a veggie lasagna with mushrooms, eggplant, and squash that is awesome...

[BLACKJACK]

I have to admit that I'm bad about not trying enough new recipes, I goto the same old favorites. Making time to spend together with the wife is a great idea, don't know if cooking together would work for us though, we have different ideas, she always wants to leave out all the good stuff like salt and fat!!!

Good luck and looking forward to your posts!!

[Nate McVey]

This is great Deitz! My wife and I do something similar but it involves a 5 star rating written in the cookbooks we have. It always seems like we make something new, stash the recipe away and forget wether we liked it or not the next time we decide to make it. Each of us rates it and jots down a little note if we feel like it. We also follow the recipe exactly the first time and then make tweeks the next time we use it.

Looking forward to the next submission! Your Facebook page is cool too!