Cooking - Vegetarian Night

Sometimes I know exactly what I want to make for dinner. Other nights I succumb to laziness and ask my husband what he wants for dinner. Normally, his response is generic. "Meat." Which equates to chicken breast in our house. Or maybe a turkey burger. Or he says "Pasta".

The other night my husband requested "something veg" for dinner. Since the end of last year, he has been more conscious about the amount of animal products he consumes, so this has become a more common request.

It's also a request I find easier to fill in the winter, as I have several very good vegetarian lentil stew-type recipes.

But, it's summer, I don't want to use the oven, and I had no idea what to make.

This is when Pepperplate comes to the rescue.

A while ago, I was searching the internet for a specific recipe. I had some combination of ingredients in mind and wanted a recipe follow. This happens to me a lot. So I ended up finding all these recipes that sounded good, but didn't quite fit the bill. And to save all that research, I put the best of the lot into Pepperplate.

And one of those recipes came in handy.

Scrolling through my list of recipes, I came across Spaghetti with Asparagus, Shiitake Mushrooms, Lemon, and Chives. It was perfect. I wasn't really looking for a pasta recipe, but, since our usual response to vegetarian is our standard pasta, it isn't shocking that it's what I settled on.

Now a few changes I made:

• I don't ever have shiitake mushrooms. Without going horribly out of my way, I wouldn't know where to get them. But I did have half a carton of regular white button mushroom in my fridge. Those would have to do.
• Also, my husband dislikes when his food is too lemony. (Ignoring his homemade lemonade, which even I think isn't sweet enough.) So, there was no way I was going to include lemon juice and peel. I only used the juice.

Things I made a point to stick to:

• I did buy vegetable stock and chives for the recipe. The vegetable stock was worth it. It provides a color and earthy flavor that you can't get from other broths. The chives weren't as important. Maybe I didn't add enough, or my chives weren't as fresh (read: flavorful) as they should have been, but they didn't add much in terms of flavor.
• I don't always follow cooking directions to a T, but this time I stuck pretty closely to the original directions. The dish turned out great, so I wouldn't do anything differently next time.
• The butter is also crucial. Definitely use it (mixed with oil as per the directions) to cook the mushrooms AND use it to thicken the sauce at the end. Nothing but real butter - I use unsalted - will do.

The result? We will definitely make this again. We ended up eating the whole pot, which usually happens with vegetarian posts. It was tasty, tasty, tasty.