Recipe Recap: Mushroom Ragu

I was inspired by the Vegetarian Bolognese that Sabrina made to look for my own mushroom-heavy pasta “sauce.”  I found one on Tasty Kitchen.

If you read the recipe, you’ll see that it calls for olive tapenade.  Can you believe that I actually had that in my pantry?  And after using just two tablespoons of it, I now need to figure out what to do with the rest of it.  I think I’m going to turn it into a dip/spread by mixing it with some feta cheese and setting it out beside some crackers.  People will eat that, right?

Anyway, back to the ‘shrooms.  I chopped and chopped and then chopped some more.

I diced up half an onion and sliced four cloves of garlic.

I put all the veggies in my skillet…

…and cooked it until the mushrooms released their liquids.

I added the next few ingredients while the pasta was cooking then I added the ragu to the drained pasta and stirred in some Parmesan cheese.

Dinner was served!

It doesn’t look all that appetizing, I admit.  But it had a lot of flavor and was good for us.  I used whole wheat Barilla rotini as my pasta, and I liked how the little mushroom pieces got caught up in the corkscrew shape.

(I realize the color of the pasta is all over the place in these pics.  I think this last picture is the most accurate.)

Because we’re watching our portion sizes, I think I should’ve planned to serve this with a salad.  Actually, the McHusband had his share of the leftovers as a side dish to a steak that he cooked and he said the two paired very well together so maybe I should keep this in mind for a side as opposed to a main dish.

Happy Friday!  Hope everyone has something fun to look forward to this weekend.  The McHusband and I have Flamingo Friday at the neighbors’, and I’m going to a matinee on Sunday with the girls.  And in between the fun stuff, there’s the Y, chores, and hopefully finishing installing the crown molding in the kitchen.