My love-affair with Martha Stewart continues - Mushroom and Nut loaf

We had a mid-winter Christmas-inspired dinner the other night at a friend's house. It was a fun and wonderfully delicious evening!

My allocated task was a meat-free main dish. Once again, I turned to Martha for inspiration, and once again, I was not disappointed.

I found a recipe for, what Martha calls a Cheese and Nut Loaf. I have modified the name above, as I think that the cheese is not really the star of this loaf - rather the cheese serves as a binding agent.

This was a wonderful, moist, tasty loaf. The consensus around the dinner was that it was certainly an incredibly meaty non-meat loaf!

I used a mixture of dried Mediterranean mushrooms - as that's what I had. I used a mixture of walnuts and cashews and I whizzed everything up in my little processor.

I also made a red wine gravy to go with my loaf. (You can't have Christmas dinner without gravy!) I cooked some onion in butter until it was tender and then added about 2 tablespoons of flour. I then gradually added about a glass of red wine, stirring constantly. Then I added enough mushroom-flavoured water (left over from simmering the dried mushrooms) to make a nice smooth gravy with a good pouring consistency. I forgot to take a photo of the gravy until it was almost all gone! But, I managed to salvage some! The gravy was so delicious, I will totally make it again, I reckon it would go with just about anything. Yum.