Slack Lasagne: Alcohol

I got excited when I got a text from Matt, my husband, the other day asking me what I'd like for dinner. The reason that this is exciting is that when he cooks it often involves cheese and I was in the mood for cheese. Nonetheless I responded suggesting potato (jacket) or pasta as we needed to be pretty swift about getting out of the house.

So I was surprised when I got home to be greeted not by the smell of cooking, but by the smell of burning timber. Apparently Matt had only asked my dinner preferences in case he needed to buy anything, by the time I replied it was too late, and he had busied himself with the skirting board project. Still, I was pleased that the skirting board project was progressing and was sure that I could concoct something for us with what we had.

It would be pasta and it would probably be mushrooms. Although there were some other possible ingredients the mushrooms looked most in need of consumption.

I had brought a 600g "family" pack of mushrooms at the supermarket a few days previously after using a little bit of algebra to calculate that this was the most economical way. I'd guesstimated that this was the case but felt the need to do the maths as usually it's better to buy things loose.

How these got named a "family" pack defeats me. An important lesson in mushroom cuisine is that that they cook down to hardly anything so this 600g would serve just Matt and me (and only for one meal). They were clearly not a family themselves (being all of approximately the same size and age) and the only family I could imagine them feeding would be one that doesn't like mushrooms very much. I suppose technically you could call a married couple who occasionally borrow a dog a family, in which case the pack description is not so misleading.

Anyway, I quartered approximately half of the mushrooms and sliced the rest (I've found this to give the best consistency to the finished product).

Prepared mushrooms

I added these to some onions and celery that had been sweating (if only there was a nicer word to use there, but I suppose it does describe the process accurately), along with some of that slack pre-chopped garlic that comes in a jar preserved in vinegar (we were out of proper garlic and this is just fine). And then you can leave it until the juices have come out of the mushrooms & they have, as predicted, cooked down to a fraction of their original volume.

So I pottered about for 20 minutes or so and then added the finishing touches:

Some herbs from the garden - I'm pretty sure it was thyme

Some vegetable stock powder

Some tomato puree - a tip from my mum when I first started cooking with mushrooms

Some crème fraiche - at least that was the plan. But what I thought was a whole pot in the fridge was less than a dollop so I augmented this with some low fat cream cheese.

Some sherry - this wasn't the plan. I would probably have used white wine but the sherry was open.

And at the same time as the sauce was being completed I boiled the pasta. We went for the fun pasta again. There was a little less fun pasta than originally planned because I lost some in the sink in the draining process.

Sphinx passa

When it came to the eating I found a penguin and a koala in my pasta shapes, as well as a reappearance of the sphinx and some less fun shapes like apples and bows.

Penguin pasta

Koala pasta

Based on the boozy aroma coming from the pan I was a bit worried that I might have taken the finishing touches a splosh too far but it was too late to worry about that now.

It turned out that the sherry wasn't a splosh too far. I think it turned what might have been a rather ordinary mushroom sauce into something rather more sophisticated.

Sherry mushroom stroganoff with fun pasta

And it was all done quickly enough that we didn't too much of our samba lesson.

After band last night I needed to deal with 2kg of cherries. I'd got these for the bargain price of £5 at a foodie market at a conservation charity's property, which is all very well but 5kg is rather a lot.

I love cherries and it would have been entirely possible for me to eat the lot as they came but I am sensible enough to know that while this would have been very pleasant for my taste buds and given me a lovely sugar rush, the effect on my intestines would not be as enjoyable.

This is about four fifths of the cherry haul

So I had put out an appeal via social media for what to do with my cherries. Pie or crumble seemed to be popular options. Black forest gateau was also mentioned. I would love to make (well eat) a black forest gateau but time would not permit on this occasion.

A few ideas for cherry preservation were suggested:

Pre-treatment and then freezing - I may yet resort to this but it seems somehow boring
Jam - would have been lovely but I have no suitable jars (not having anticipated any preserve making I haven't been saving them)
Cherry brandy - which I can only imagine as something very medicinal tasting

Matt, my husband, had found half a bottle of vodka in one of our cupboards a few days previously (whilst looking for some sherry I think). This was quite possibly left over from our wedding, nearly 5 years ago. So while cherry vodka seems hardly less likely to end up medicinal tasting than cherry brandy it would at least make sense based on the available ingredients.

Firstly I did a bit of cherry picking and chopped out any bits that weren't looking so nice, followed by a rinse. Then Matt joined me in a production line: he cut and stoned and I dropped the cherries into the bottle. The dropping made a very satisfying sound. It was while I was doing the dropping that I realised why it would have been a better idea to use a wide topped bottle: the removal of the cherries will be a challenge.

We added some sugar (arbitrarily 4 tablespoons) and then gave the bottle a good shake around.