Mushroom Pasta in Herb Cream Sauce

This is one of my "throw-it-all-in-there" improv recipes.

Ingredients:

2 cups dry egg noodles

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 minced garlic clove

3 cups button mushrooms (raw), with stumps removed, mushroom heads sliced

3 tbsp parsley, chopped

1 tbsp assorted other herbs, minced (here: sage, oregano, and thyme)

2 tbsp olive oil

lots of black pepper to season to taste

pinch cayenne

pinch nutmeg

1/4 (or more) grated parmiggiano reggiano

Directions:

Boil enough water to cook the 2 cups of egg noodles. Salt the water.

In the meantime, heat up a sauce pan over medium heat. Add to this sauce pan 1 tbsp of olive oil and the minced garlic clove. Saute until the garlic clove is fragrant (about 2-3 minutes). Throw in all of the mushrooms and salt and pepper them. Drizzle another tbsp of olive oil over the mushrooms, because they will have absorbed all of the oil that was in the pan. Cook for five minutes or until soft and brown. The mushrooms will shrink from 3 cups in volume to 1/2 cup. Set mushrooms aside.

In same sauce pan, heat up 1/2 cup of heavy cream over high heat. When cream boils, turn heat down to low and simmer until cream thickens, stirring frequently. Add salt, pepper, 1 tbsp of the chopped parsley, pinch cayenne, and pinch nutmeg. Sauce will thicken in about 10 minutes. Towards the end of the ten minutes, throw in another tbsp of parsley and the tbsp of other herbs. Throw in 1/4 cup grated parmiggiano reggiano.

When the pasta is done, toss it with the cream sauce. If the pasta and the sauce are still too watery, turn the heat up to medium and continuously stir the pasta, cream sauce, herbs, and mushrooms until the sauce thickens up again.

Serve hot, with more grated parmiggiano reggiano. Sprinkle the remaining tbsp of parsley over the dish as garnish. Pepper liberally.