You can wake me up for this and I even promise I won’t deck ya! No, really, I’ll eat it smack-dab in the middle of the night. How’s that for procrastination?

This bowl has a whole lot of creamy, yummy goodness in it. You can serve this with an indecent amount of crusty French bread for dipping, but what’s even better is warm, crispy crostini with some ragout spooned on top. Delicious.

But it can be easily transformed into dinner when you add some leftover chicken (and maybe a handful of peas?), and pour it over pasta, that will work beautifully as well.

Whatever you do, make sure you throw in a nice green salad, a soft-boiled egg and roasted asparagus. That should get your weekend off to a good start.

Ingredients:

9 oz mushrooms
1/2 small onion
1 leek (white part only)
1 small garlic clove
2 oz wheat flour
2 oz  butter
1 1/2 to 2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley
fresh lemon juice
1 oz Parmesan (or to taste)
1 tbsp oil (neutral flavor)

Directions:

Wash and mince the leek (white part only), onion and grate the garlic.

Clean up the mushrooms, remove the stem and slice them up.

I’m using peanut oil because of its neutral flavor. Heat the oil.

Cook the onion for a minute.

Add the leek and garlic and continue to cook it (medium heat) until the onion turns translucent.

Add the mushrooms, and stir while cooking them.

As soon as they soften up, you transfer them to a bowl and cover the bowl with aluminum foil.

Melt the butter, add the flour and cook the roux for 2 minutes while stirring.

Add 1 1/2 cup milk, bring it to a boil and let it thicken. Add more milk if it’s too thick, but don’t make it too thin, we’ll be adding lemon juice as well.

Season the sauce with salt and pepper and add the mushrooms again.

Add 2 to 3 tbsp lemon juice. Start with one tbsp and work your way up from there. The lemon should add zing and freshness, but not overrule everything else.

 
We’re creating a harmony here, you know! Or something like that.
 

Let the sauce simmer for 5 minutes. Grate the Parmesan in there and stir it through the sauce.

Finish the sauce with the freshly chopped parsley.

It doesn’t just look pretty, it adds an earthy tone that goes really well with the mushrooms.

The combination of the creamy sauce with the mushrooms, lemon juice and salty Parmesan is magnifico.