Our favorite for the week was the Mushroom and Olive sauce, from Classico. There's just something about olives that brings out the tomato flavor. (Note: we are fans of the black olives that come in a can, not the fancy gourmet olives from Whole Foods.) We don't usually add them to sauce, only pasta salad. And mushrooms are always at home in a tomato sauce.
The Roasted Garlic sauce from Classico was much stronger garlic than we had expected, almost raw instead of roasted. We're used to adding a little garlic powder to our Prego, and this was potent garlic. Our second try, we added in some mushrooms and leeks, as well as simmered the sauce, producing a much milder garlic flavor. The sauce was thick and chunky, working well with all kinds of pasta. I think we might stick with garlic powder for now, and leave the roasting for a future project.
Finally, we found a Chianti Mushroom sauce from Bove's of Vermont (fava beans not included ...). I found it rather spicy, while Laura was perfectly pleased. Both of us had a hard time finding the mushrooms; we suspect they were finely diced white buttons, as the more distinct cremini or porta bella flavors were absent. We're not sure if we'll try this one again, but maybe some other flavors from Bove's will work. They have a nice basic website for ordering if you can't find it near you; be sure to read their story about peppers and vodka sauce. :)
Although we didn't set out with this in mind, we ended up with mushrooms in all of our sauces. Hmmm....
