She uses it as a stand-in for traditional gravy. I like that idea for maybe pork. Even chicken.

My list so far is an egg frittata. Risotto, that then becomes arancini. (maybe tomorrow night). Arancini freezes nice.

We have a big snow storm hitting tomorrow starting around noon. Lots of storm prep...meal planning for at least through next Wednesday. Still cleaning the freezer shelf by shelf taking my time. Labeled 2018 does not get wasted but goes in the pup food rotation. (they eat good). Stocks, grains, veg, fish, nothing heavily seasoned.

This looks good. Creamy Wild Mushroom and Parsnip Soup. Link, HERE

No cream. Good color adding a carrot. NYT is my go-to now with a new format. I realize there is a pay-wall but I change things a bit and will post the recipes as I go. I think I'll use additional roasted garlic and leek.

Sleevendog, stay safe! We've been following the storm track on the Weather Channel :-0.

I make something fairly similar, slightly different. I made some for New Year's but ran out of time and energy. Saved it, having forgotten, before it went bad. I made a big dish of chicken and biscuits in layers for even distribution, and put the mushrooms on top under the biscuits. They livened up the flavor of the filling, and were heavenly with the herbed biscuits. I kept saving both out to eat together.

we are in the middle of snowmageddon here ... hunker down, comfort food and plenty of ... s ......leep

sleevendog, be prepared, winter has got to come sometimes. We're supposed to get a storm here too, so of course the farrier is scheduled for tomorrow at noon to trim hooves. I'm kind of figuring we'll have to reschedule, LOL.

Last weekend, though, we had the weather people running in circles screaming the sky was falling. Big Storm. Ice, snow, wind, 15 inches of snow, gonna be bad. We got about 1/4 inch of ice, lost power for two hours. Got about an inch of snow. Weather people love the drama. I keep asking Elery when 3 inches of snow even became a winter snow warning here in Michigan, geez.

The mushrooms sound good. While you are cleaning your freezer I'll keep you company sorting through the winter squash in storage, I'm betting I'll have a few that need cooking and tomorrow will be the perfect day to have the oven on for a while.

Stay warm!

Annie

There’s a restaurant near me that serves a wonderful mushroom appetizer:

Wild Mushroom Ragout finished with dry sherry and cream and gruyere gratin.

It looks like the recipe might be similar to this without the herb crumb crust and Madeira wine. I haven’t had it for a while, but I think the restaurant uses more gruyere than what this recipe calls for. The top has a nice amount of melted cheese. The restaurant doesn’t mention Parmesan cheese.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/2127-mushrooms-in-cream-and-sherry-herb-crust

Speaking of Swiss cheese, I had the last of the mushrooms on an herbed biscuit covered in too much melty gooey Ementhaller. SO good!

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has 2 wonderful recipes in his every day veg book, one red wine ragout with soft polenta and another with white wine and orzo.

I used the recipe as written in the original post. Excellent. I did pulse the soaked dried in the cuisinart. Wood ear can sometimes stay a bit chewy. 4 cup pyrex, soaked was near 3 cups and lots of mushroom liquor. Froze 4 1/2 pints.

Made a ragu with smoke/roasted Hatch chilis, a risotto and a batch of arancini.

Scoop, cube of fresh mozzarella, scoop to seal. So good. Ate a few, froze these.

I keep lots of dried mushrooms on hand - mostly porcini - and I always have mushrooms in the fridge.

I make a similar dish to the first recipe you posted, but without rosemary, even though I have a huge rosemary bush in my back yard. For me, a little rosemary goes a long way, and it can easily be overpowering. I mostly use thyme instead.

When I make quesadillas, I make them with fresh masa and deep fry them. They are best made with mushrooms (or huitlacoche) and Oaxacan cheese, which is similar to mozzarella. Fresh masa is somewhat similar to polenta in terms of flavor.

I love risotto also and think I would like the orzo version. Thanks for the inspirations.

Strange winter so far in the NorthEast. My rosemary is still alive under snow. Not had any weather below 25 to speak of. (I should move it to the garage and might have a big plant saved)

Nothing compares to dried porcini. For some reason my forest blend has porcini so maybe they sent me the wrong bag.

Marcela Hazan was my first cookbooks, the small two paperbacks when I moved to NY so many years ago. Her mushroom risotto recipe is so dear to my soul. Never disappoints.

I should mention that I took out the 4 1/2 pints for the freezer, then 3 cups for the risotto. I only added the small amount of flour for the ragu. Oh, totally forgot the mushroom gravy I used for the pork roast. That was spectacular. What a recipe, so easy, so many meals.

The ragu...

Yum. Yeah, I know it's not a very interesting or sophisticated comment, probably adds nothing to the discussion, but Wow, yum! I'm jealous.