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As you can probably tell, I often resort to pasta as an easy dinner. I was raised with pasta on the menu almost every night, so when I have no idea what to make for dinner, I usually make up a batch of rotini.

I used to make a lot of vegetarian pastas: pasta with olive oil, lemon juice and cayenne pepper, macaroni and cheese, fettucine alfredo and, of course, pasta with tomato sauce. But my boyfriend is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and while he loves pasta as much as the next guy, if there’s no meat in it, it’s not dinner.

I started having to come up with pasta dishes that would please him, and this is one of them. It includes another of his favorite foods, mushrooms, as well as a lot of cheese, which he loves.

Pasta with Mushrooms

8 oz. uncooked pasta

2 tsp olive oil

10 white button mushrooms, thinly sliced

¼ lb ground hamburger meat

½ cup shredded cheese (I use Emmental because it comes pre-shredded here, but any bagged blend is fine)

freshly ground pepper

salt

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente, about six minutes. Drain and reserve some of the pasta water.

Meanwhile, heat a skillet over high heat and add one teaspoon of the olive oil. Place the meat in the skillet and add salt and pepper. Allow the meat to brown on each side before turning, about four minutes total.

Remove the meat from the skillet and drain off all but two teaspoons of the fat. Add the mushrooms and more salt and pepper, and sauté until cooked through. Add the reserved olive oil if necessary.

Add the meat back to the skillet, and toss with the pasta. Add the cheese and stir until melted. Add some of the reserved pasta water if necessary. Taste for seasonings.

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