Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Improv Pasta -- 300th Post!

Wow. 300 posts to my blog! Many thanks to the small handful of readers that help to stir up my motivation.

I thought it would be fitting if I posted about a dinner improvisation -- something to document how comfortable I've become in my kitchen over the past few years.

I had learned to make a sage and brown butter sauce in a pasta-making class a while back. It is both simple and wonderful. Incorporating roasted cherry tomatoes into this buttery sauce makes it even better.

The other night, I didn't feel like waiting for the oven to preheat, and I also wanted to spare my husband (who is our official dishwasher...um, apart from the actual dishwashing machine) from a pile of too many dishes. Instead, I halved a pint of cherry tomatoes and cooked them in some olive oil, sage (from my herb garden!), and garlic in a fry pan (with salt and pepper, of course). After the tomatoes started to lose their shape, I tossed in some chopped kale. Once the kale was bright green and wilty, I removed the pan from the heat and tossed the tomato-kale sauce with some penne.

I was so pleased with the result -- and am always excited to sneak kale into my meal.

2 comments:

Rich W. said...

I do something similar all the time. Sometimes I add summer squash, rd pepper or spinach depending on what I have on hand. I have also been known to add a bit of stock at times or some red pepper flakes. It's a really great, fast dinner.

ErinM said...

It is a good fridge-cleaning kind of recipe, RW. But man, the tomatoes make it *magical* !