Mushrooms on Toast: a recipe

Mushrooms are one of those things that people either totally love or totally hate. There doesn’t seem to be much in between. I used to think I didn’t like mushrooms until I tried them again one day and discovered that I really liked them. At a birthday party we had for our friend Heather last month, I wanted to make something with mushrooms. I looked at a few different recipes, including one by Rachael Ray, and changed a few things up until I came up with something I was happy with.

I recreated this recipe on a smaller scale last week for some lunchtime snacks. I pretty much just eyeball all of the ingredients, but here are some measurements if you must have them. The recipe below isn’t very saucy – but if you want extra saucy, just add more cream. Alternatively, if you want to cut down on the fat, you can use milk, but it will probably take a little longer to tighten up the sauce.

2 pats of butter
1 T olive oil
2 cloves of chopped garlic
1 T dried Italian seasonings
handful of baby bella mushrooms
about 1/4 cup of heavy cream
handful of parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
toasted bread of your choice (I used sourdough)

Heat butter and olive oil in a skillet. When the butter is getting foamy, add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and add dried Italian seasonings. Cook for a few minutes (3-5) until the mushrooms are golden and soft. Add cream. Cook until the sauce has thickened up slightly – if you want it saucy and more loose, just add a touch more cream. Add parmesan cheese. Serve mushrooms onto your toasted bread.

* for the party, I didn’t put the mushrooms on the toast, I just left the mushrooms in a large bowl and had the toast off to the side. This cut back on preparation and allowed people to put as much or as little mushrooms as they wanted and allowed the bread to be eaten plain or with other items for those pesky non-mushroom lovers.