Matt & Katie: Mushroom Medley

As I mentioned before, comfort foods are back. Farmer's market meals were delicious all summer, but nature must have intended something heartier for the colder months, right? Or else asparagus would grow locally all year round? (And yes, I know we could be subsisting on such delicacies as rutabags, turnips, and other root vegetables, but...) One of my absolute FAVORITE such hearty dishes is one my mother makes, something called Hamburger Mushroom Medley, or in our house, HamMushMed. She has fancier dishes in her repertoire, don't get me wrong, but something about that combination of egg noodles, cheese, mushrooms, and canned tomatoes just makes me weak in the knees. As the name implies, the recipe does call for hamburger, and it's delicious that way; but you can also make it with soy crumbles or without any meat/substitute at all. That's how I'm making it tonight. Here's my lineup:

Whole-wheat egg noodles
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
10.75 oz can cream of mushroom soup (he got left out of the picture somehow)
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1-2 cups cheddar cheese for topping

I'm happy with all those ingredients except the cream of mushroom soup. Here's why:

By far, not the worst ingredients in the world, but not exactly a nutritional powerhouse, either. I'm convinced we could make our own, and better, and come up with something worthy of eating straight out of the bowl, too.

Now that I think about it...I think at some point we did.

But, because it's 4pm and I've only just gotten out of bed, and we have this can languishing in the cupboard, I'm going to use it today.

When we were kids, HamMushMed was kind of a mixed bag. Creamy, cheesy noodles and hamburger? Check. However, we insisted that my mom mash up the diced tomatoes with a potato masher so that we wouldn't get any chunks of...shudder...tomato in our bowls. What was even worse was if a little brownish-black shred of mushroom had survived the creaming process (she wasn't using the extra sauteed mushrooms back then; she added those in later, when our palates had somewhat matured). "What is THIS?!" we would shriek. She would roll her eyes a little and point out "that's the MUSHROOM part," and reach over and fork up the rejects lined up around the edges of our plates.

Another favorite memory of HMM is that my mom usually purchased an extra-large batch of egg noodles, meaning that there were always leftover cooked noodles. She portioned these out into Ziploc baggies and termed them "noodle bundles," and, with a little butter and salt and pepper, they made an excellent dinner or snack. For awhile I thought about opening a noodles and butter stand, the combination is that good. I guess they've sort of done that now. Especially now that we're fanatical about fresh, raw, handmade butter, Matt and I have rediscovered it as a delectably rich sauce and dressing for everything from pasta to vegetables. Be still my heart!

Anyway, without further ado:

(Hamburger) Mushroom Medley.