Quick & easy mushrooms in red wine with pasta recipe

As you might have already guessed, this recipe was inspired by my love of red wine!

True, I prefer to drink it rather than eat it, but a little wine can elevate a simple, basic pasta dish into something special, and we all deserve a treat every now and again.

I suppose I should call this champignons au vin because I did take a look at the classic coq au vin recipe before embarking on cooking this dish.

I used baby bellas but the regular button variety is just as good. The entire meal takes only about ten minutes to make - that's the time it takes to cook the pasta - so it's a great dinner to prepare when you don't have much time. For a weekday meal, I serve this with salad but it's also a good meal for entertaining, especially with the addition of garlic bread. Follow this with a selection of cheeses with some good quality crackers, along with fresh fruits such as grapes, and you've got a meat free meal fit for a king.

If you have any leftovers, which is very unlikely indeed, the vegetable and wine mix is lovely to serve simply and quickly on freshly made toast.

Photographs © Britflorida.

• 6 oz. pasta. Of course, it depends how hungry you are but I tend to work with the idea of three ounces per person
• Baby bella or regular button mushrooms - about a dozen or so - this was an eight ounce pack
• 1 carrot
• 2 small onions. You could use one larger one - amounts don't need to be exact
• ½ glass red wine
• 1 clove garlic
• A little olive oil
• 1 tomato
• Salad to serve - I used baby salad leaves, black olives (pitted) from a jar and one spring onion

STOVE TOP

You'll need two pans to cook this dish. Place a large saucepan on a high heat and boil water for the pasta. The more room and the more water the pasta has, the less likely it is to stick. Heat the oil in a medium-sized skillet or frying pan. Once the water has boiled, add the pasta and turn down the heat a little but keep it at a rolling boil.

CARROT

Clean the carrot ad cut away any blemishes. Slice, and tip the slices into the oil. The heat should be on a medium setting so that the carrots cook gently.

ONION AND GARLIC

Chop these too and add them to the pan.

MUSHROOMS

Clean these and add them whole into the pan with the other ingredients. Let them cook for two or three minutes. Then add the wine and the chopped tomato. Leave this to simmer gently while you prepare the salad and strain the pasta.

THE SALAD

Simply arrange the salad ingredients on side plates. This is better than serving it on the same plate as the main dish as it will remain crisp and cool.

TO SERVE

Add the pasta and the mushrooms to a shallow bowl, sprinkle with black pepper and serve.

I don't know about you but to me, there's no such thing as 'too many cookbooks'. I love to read them for great ideas and inspiration. Sometimes, they introduce me to ingredients that I haven't really paid attention to in the past. I'm particularly partial to vegetarian Italian recipe books as it's almost guaranteed that the meals will be quick to make, inexpensive and healthy too. Perfect!