pasta two-ways

A pack of beautiful multi-variety mushrooms at the greengrocer was calling out to me. The only ones I could recognise were the enoki mushrooms. But I still bought them on an impulse, eventhough I don't know what I was going to do with it.


I saw a cooking show once, the show host was hunting wild mushrooms in some forest in Europe, when she got some, she cooked the mushrooms out in the field in the rain with just garlic, butter, olive oil and a pinch of salt. It looked so warm and delicious that made me want to try it, but at the same time make it into a more substantial meal by adding some wholemeal pasta. I also had with me some fresh basil that I bought for another dish, so I added that to the butter sauce at the last minute.

Wholemeal spaghetti with mushrooms & garlic butter sauce

To tell you the truth, this was the first time I had wholemeal pasta. I bought them to help me with my fibre intake. I have been trying to eat healthier as of late, but eating healthy sucks!! While the buttered mushrooms with basil were delicious, I truly cannot get used to the graininess and powderiness of the wholemeal pasta. I packed up the remaining uncooked wholemeal pasta and gave them to my older sister. Hahaha....

Wholemeal durum wheat semolina

Durum wheat semolina

The next night, I made another pasta dish with a combination of prawns, the mushrooms, garlic, chopped tomatoes and fresh basil. I added some salt, sugar, black pepper and let the sauce caramelised a little bit before I added everything else. This time I used standard pasta. It was definitely more satisfying. I could appreciate the meatiness of the mushrooms much better, enveloped in the light tomato sauce, accompanied with the al-dente pasta and little prawn nuggets.

Spaghetti with mushrooms & prawns in tomato basil sauce

I'm not saying they were the best pasta dishes, I'll probably tweak it a bit on my second and third try. But I got to say that it was certainly fun to create these quick simple meals just with what I've got in hand.