Mushrooms in Buttermilk Stroganoff Sauce

It is quite cold here this morning: According to weatherunderground.com a few minutes ago, it's 31.3ºF. Now, for those of you in the Frozen North, that may seem like a spring breeze, but for us here in the Sunny South, it's frigid, I assure you. So, it's cold enough to snow, and I sure wish it would!

Last night, I had about eleventyzillion choices for dinner, all of which were new recipes I want to try. What I finally settled on was Mushrooms in Buttermilk Stroganoff Sauce over hot, buttered biscuits(which I freely admit come from a boxed mix, as my homemade biscuits aren't fit to eat, sigh.), and frozen Brussels sprouts in a butter sauce. If I had put the biscuits in the oven earlier than I did, the meal would've taken me only 30 minutes...I kid you not...to prepare, and that included the chopping and dicing. As it was, it took 45 minutes, which wasn't "all" that bad, and the meal was very good. I will cook it again one of these days.

The recipe comes from "The New Laurel's Kitchen," one of my favorite cookbooks, written by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal. The original "Laurel's Kitchen" was one of my first vegetarian cookbooks, way back when I was in my late 20's, and of course, I have lost it. Fortunately, the new one is very, very close to the old one, and I love it. Anyway, here's the recipe, which she simply calls "Stroganoff Sauce:"

1C buttermilk
1Tbs. cornstarch

1 small onion, chopped
(1 clove garlic)
1Tbs. butter
1/2-1 1/2C mushrooms, sliced

1/4tsp salt, or 1Tbs shoyu
black pepper

Combine buttermilk and cornstarch and set aside. Saute onion and garlic in butter until soft. Crush the garlic with a fork. Stir in mushrooms and cook just until tender. Remove mushrooms and juices from the pan and pour in the buttermilk mixture. Stir and cook until thickened, then return mushrooms and their juices to the pan. Season with salt or shoyu and pepper. This really tastes like a sour cream sauce, even with only a few mushrooms.

First of all, notice that she doesn't list servings. I'm a hearty eater, and ate almost all of this by myself. It would probably serve two light eaters, or maybe more if you added more milk to the sauce, as well as more mushrooms and onions.

Now, in the "labels for this post" section, I said vegan recipe, and the way I made it last night, it was vegan. No, I'm lying, because I use margarine, but to totally veganize it, you could use a mild vegetable oil. I didn't have any buttermilk, so I put a tablespoonful of white wine vinegar into a one-cup measure, and filled the cup with soy milk, and let it sit for a few minutes. Turned out beautifully, too. I also used minced garlic from a jar, instead of a fresh clove. Those were the only things I did differently, so basically, I actually followed a recipe for a change. The sauce, cooked from Laurel's directions, is very, very thick, which is why I think adding more milk would stretch it to more servings without any loss of goodness. Oh, btw, I used sliced portobello mushrooms that I had found at Kroger, already clean and sliced, and I diced them fairly small. You can use any kind of mushrooms you like, of course. Anyway, like I've already said, I really liked this, it's easy, and I will make it again in the future.

Until next time, Happy Eating!