This is a great variation of mac and cheese for the winter. It’s also easy to make because you don’t have to make a béchamel sauce like you do for more traditional mac and cheese dishes. Start to finish, this takes about an hour to make.

24 oz. baby bella mushrooms (if you really love mushrooms, you can use 30-32 oz, but 10-12 oz will have to be roasted separately)
12 oz small pasta (small shells, elbow, etc)
8-12 oz. low fat sour cream OR 8 oz. regular sour cream**
3 TBS butter
2 TBS olive oil
1 large sweet onion, diced
8-12 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
Parmesan, Romano, or Asiago cheese, shredded, to sprinkle on top
Fresh Chives
Fresh Chervil
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of nutmeg
9x13 roasting glass pan

**(the original recipe calls for 4 oz crème fraiche which tastes like a rich, silky, buttery, sour cream. It has 11 g of fat per ounce, more than twice the amount of regular sour cream. Adding more fat doesn’t enhance the flavor or texture of this dish; it just makes it drip-with-fat-greasy. Because this recipe already has olive oil and butter in it, I no longer put in the crème fraiche and just stick to the sour cream—low fat or regular.)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. Start making pasta.

3. While waiting for pasta, put mushrooms in a large bowl. Add olive oil and mix immediately. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Let stand.

4. In a smaller bowl, add sour cream, butter, pepper, minced garlic, and a pinch of nutmeg. As pasta is boiling, add ¼ c. of boiling pasta water to this mixture. Mix well.

5. After draining pasta, put in the 9x13 pan. Add chopped onions, half of the Gruyere cheese, and sour cream mixture. Mix well. Add mushroom mixture on top. Add rest of cheese, mixing in a smaller amount of parmesan/asiago/romano cheese on top (or this can be added right after it comes out of the oven).

6. Bake for about 20-25 minutes in oven.

Serve immediately with fresh herbs. Makes about 6 serving.