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The recession is really taking over in Limerick at the moment, the loss of Dell is going to have a huge impact on the city, I don’t think we can even imagine how much yet. The last few days have seen a few closures in our area, a local cafe was closed down by the Revenue Sheriff last week, there are rumours that a long established hotel in the area is closing it’s doors on Friday and a relatively new city centre hotel run by the same group is in trouble too. Our business is definitely down as people are watching what they are spending and take-away food is a luxury, we’re doing a few offers which seem to be very popular so I think people are really looking out for bargains and value for money.

We’ll be fine through this recession(fingers crossed) as we never overly relied on credit which a lot of businesses seemed to have done for the last few years and I think we are going to see a lot more closures in 2009. We’re lucky too in that we can work our place ourselves as it’s so small so if it comes down to it me and Bru can manage the place on our own but hopefully it won’t come to that. Our main problem at the moment is our renovation, the plan is finished and the builders are coming in with their final prices which should be a lot cheaper than before but we keep questioning whether this is the year to do it? 2009 is probably not the year to be spending money but on the other hand it will completely enhance the business but if people don’t have the money to spend, it makes no difference how much better the place is! That’s our predicament at the moment but we’re verging more towards doing it. We’ll just have to wait and see what the final price is and then make our decision.

I have no photo of the finished product today as the camera battery decided to go dead just as I was about to take the photo – “hate dat”! I rarely eat pasta with cream sauces as I prefer tomato based or olive oil based pastas but every now and again they are nice for a change.  This pasta is so simple to make and is really rich and filling, you could use the sauce to have with steak too as everyone I know loves steak with mushroom sauce. It’s fairly calorific so if you’re on a diet stay away from it:)

what you need:

300g dried pasta – pappardelle, fettucine, tagliatelle.

25g butter

1 tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove

white wine

200ml double cream

3 tbsp grated Parmesan

250g mushrooms – I use the gourmet pack from Superquinn but you can use regular ones too.

sea salt and black pepper

what to do:

bring a pot of water to the boil, add salt and pasta and cook until al dente.

chop your mushrooms and garlic:

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melt your butter with your oil in a large pan and add your garlic:

 

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add your mushrooms and season:

 

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cook for about 8 – 10 mins until coloured:

 

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add a good splash of wine and simmer until evaporated, add your cream and Parmesan:

 

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simmer gently until it has thickened:

 

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drain your pasta and add to your sauce:

 

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mix together and serve with lots of Parmesan cheese on top:

 

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buon appetito!

pasta, vegetarian

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January 28, 2009

26 Comments