Roasted Mushrooms

I love mushrooms. I think they're delicious, I like the texture, and they add such a meaty component to dishes.  I know not everyone feels the same way about mushrooms, which makes me sad.  The cafeteria in my office building had roasted mushrooms every day as a selection in the buffet for about a month, which made up for the sadness.  But then the sadness returned when they stopped offering the mushrooms.  My emotions are being toyed with.

If you do like mushrooms, here's a recipe for an easy side dish. Or, if you're like me, you'll eat the entire pound of mushrooms all by yourself as a whole meal. It happens.

I looked at various roasted mushroom recipes and liked this one the best, and adapted it just the tiniest bit.

Ingredients

1 lb. mushrooms (crimini or white)
2 TBS plus 1 tsp olive oil
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 TBS finely minced garlic
1 TBS balsamic vinegar
1 TBS finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 TBS chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Serves 4 as a side dish, or 1 if we're talking about me

About prepping mushrooms: they say you're not supposed to rinse mushrooms because they soak up too much water, and that the best way is to wipe each f*(#$ one with a damp paper towel.  However, I was watching Jacques Pepin and he said washing mushrooms is fine, as long as you wait to do it right before you use them (otherwise the water soaks in too much, causes soft spots, something like that).  So I decided to side with Jacques on this one since it made my life easier.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Crank it!

Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.  Trim the dried ends of the washed mushrooms and quarter them--some of then were petite enough that I just halved them, or, if extra mini petite, just left them whole.

Toss with 2 TBS olive oil, salt and pepper, and place mushrooms onto a baking sheet.  Give them some space so they actually roast instead of just steam each other.  Roast the mushrooms for about 15 minutes, stirring things around halfway through.

While the mushrooms are roasting, prepare the very complicated sauce.  What you do is combine the remaining 1 tsp of olive oil, balsamic, garlic, and thyme.

Toss the sauce with the roasted mushrooms (if there is a lot of liquid in your baking sheet, pour that off before this step).

Put the mushrooms back into the oven for another 10 minutes.

And enjoy.  I think they say mushrooms have a lot of umami. I find them addictive. Hence a pound of them disappearing into my mouth in 10 minutes.

Ta-da!