The recipe for Cream Sauce in Le Guide combines cream with Béchamel Sauce --
so you basically made a cream sauce. As for lumps, all of these types of
sauce call for straining through fine mesh.

So how many rolls of wallpaper did you hang, Dee?
Lefty
--
Life is for learning

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
> I've never made a bechamel that I would consider exceptional or even
> acceptable (for me). Today I tried a different tactic.
>
> I was going to have a different meal altogether but when I looked in the
> frig there was 3 cups of cream and some brown crimini mushrooms. The
cream
> was 8 days out of date, but still acceptable, and the mushrooms might have
> been if-y when I bought them (in a cellophane pack).
>
> I cleaned up the mushrooms to where they didn't smell too amoniac and
fried
> them. While they were frying I got out and compared Giada's and Mario's
> bechamel sauce and found that Mario's recipe fit my 3 cups of cream
(without
> calculating the difference of Giada's 4 cups' recipe). Both called for
> milk - not cream. I didn't care because I've never made a fit bechamel so
> far -- always lumpy and spending more time with lumps than the cooking!
>
> I heated the cream in the microwave slowly to about 160º while I heated
the
> 5 T butter (both recipes called for the same amount of butter) and then
> sprinkled 1/3 cup flour into it. Giada' recipe said to cook 2 minutes,
> Mario's said to cook 6-7 minutes. I cooked until starting to turn a
little
> brownish, as Mario said, maybe about 4 minutes. DH poured the hot cream
> into the butter/flour mixture 1 cup at a time while I whisked. It was
very
> thick; I would assume mainly due to cream instead of milk. I added 1/2
the
> amount of salt and nutmeg called for, and it still was pretty pungent with
> salt & nutmeg. NO LUMPS!
>
> Then I added the finished mushrooms and the spaghetti to the big pan of
> bechamel and used tongs to separate them as they cooked. This really
tasted
> like carbonara.
>
> I saved the rest of the bechamel (in the freezer) for another day.
> Necessity was the mother of invention as I rescued the mushrooms and the
> rest of the cream that I had bought to make chocolate truffles.
>
> Served with 'organic' fresh carrots, salt & pepper; butter lettuce with
oil
> and vinegar and a glass of wine, French for DH; Italian for me.
>
> It's now snack time and a movie -- thanks TJ's for salza and chips - as
they
> say, "Good to go."
> Dee Dee
>
>
>
>