This week’s Featured Contributor hails from a beautiful site with a fresh focus. Healthy. Delicious. offers straightforward fare that packs in rich flavors without a lot of  extra work. The result? Beautiful food, manageable ingredients and meals that live up to the header as both healthy and delicious.

One night, my husband and I were watching Bizarre Foods when – in a rare occurrence for that show – we both turned to each other and said “we need to make that!” In the episode we had on, Andrew traveled to Russia and had been served a very unusual version of stroganoff where beef and caramelized onions were cooked together with sherry and sour cream was served on the side.

While stroganoff hadn’t been something we would have made before – I typically found it to be too heavy and too bland; he had only ever had the hamburger helper variety – this version quickly became one of our favorite meals and our default for when we didn’t know what else to cook. It was cheap, easy comfort food. But as with most comfort food, there was a problem: the recipe relied almost exclusively on meat and carbs, offering very little in the way of nutritional value.

So one night, I decided to take this one step closer to a traditional stroganoff and up the nutritional ante by adding mushrooms. To our surprise, the dish tasted exactly the same as it always had, the mushrooms were almost indiscernible. As we made the dish again and again, we continued to increase the mushrooms and decrease the beef until we came to this final all-mushroom version that – in addition to being far lower in calories and higher in vitamins than the original – is actually even more mouth-watering than the original.

Where most stroganoffs are rich messes of overcooked meat in goopy sauce, this mushroom version is light and fresh with bright, floral notes from the sherry and a little bit of spice. A dollop of sour cream added to each diner’s plate adds a touch of creaminess without thickening the sauce too much.

Note: In order to prevent the dish from being too one-note, I like to use two different types of mushrooms – one cut into large chunks and the other sliced thinly. If you prefer to use only one type of mushroom, you can provide some textural interest to the dish by keeping 2/3 of them larger and slicing the rest. Using all sliced mushrooms will result into a mushy stew.

Mushroom Stroganoff

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 cups crimini mushrooms, quartered
• 1 cup shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs cooking sherry, divided
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 Tbs whole peppercorns
• 1-2 Tbs cracked pepper
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• Egg noodles and sour cream for serving

Melt the olive oil and butter together in a heavy pot set over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they become very soft and begin to turn golden – about 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms, 1/4 cup sherry, sage, salt, peppercorns, and pepper. Whisk in the cornstarch. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until the mushrooms soften and the liquid has cooked off. Turn the heat to high and add the remaining sherry and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, allowing it reduce into a thick sauce.

Serve over top of noodles with a dollop of sour cream.

Serves 4.