Butternut Squash Ravioli with Butter-Sage Sauce

One of our favorite tricks is to dress up packaged food with a homemade sauce.  Tonight's dish is a perfect example: store-bought frozen ravioli and a brown butter-sage sauce with prosciutto.  The whole meal took twenty minutes to prepare, and most of that time was spent waiting for the water to boil.

Making brown butter, or beurre noisette, is simple enough: cook butter until it's burnt just enough to taste good.  I started by crisping some sliced prosciutto in a bit of oil, set that aside, and melted about a stick of butter in the pot with some crumbled sage.  I gave it a stir every minute or so until it looked like the photo above.  Then I added some wine and sugar to deglaze (which put out a lot of steam, so be careful), added the ravioli, prosciutto, parsley, pepper, and tossed it to coat.  Kate suggested that we crumble some Amaretti Cookies over the dish, which added a nice crunchy texture.

Korean-Style Tuna with Cilantro Noodles

This one is fast, simple, and has loads of flavor.  We topped it with a Wasabi Compound Butter, but you could reserve some of the marinade before you add the tuna and use it as a dipping sauce. This is a great example of the "less is more" philosophy of cooking: a few ingredients, properly prepared, will result in a bold and satisfying meal.

Adding Red Pepper Flakes to the Marinade

I find it easier to mix the marinade in a measuring bowl and give it a vigorous stir before it goes in the bag with the tuna.

Grilling Tuna

Make sure that you don't over cook the steaks.  Tuna cooked well-done might as well be cardboard.  I prefer my tuna to be seared on the outside and nearly raw in the middle.  Kate likes hers more towards medium-rare.  We agreed that the rule of thumb in our house will be "two-minute tuna", and no more.

Ramen in the Wok

When you make the noodles, be sure to have all of your ingredients ready to go.  This dish cooks in a hurry, and you won't have time to measure and cut once you start.  This might be my favorite preparation for Ramen Noodles.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

This has been one of my favorite pasta dishes for years.  I know that classically speaking, you're supposed to use Pancetta instead of bacon, but how can I say no to bacon?  This has lots of great flavor, and it's fast and cheap to make.

Uncooked Sauce

It's important that the sauce is mixed and ready before the pasta is strained.  The residual heat in the pot and pasta are the only thing that cook the egg, so you want to ready to move quickly when the pasta is strained.

Bread Crumb Mixture

We were in a hurry tonight, so we didn't toast the bread crumbs like the recipe suggests.  We did use the Buddha Hand though, which makes the mixture even tastier. A little of this goes a long way, but bring the bowl to the table to allow people to add more if they like.

Ponzu Soba Noodles

Ponzu Soba Noodles with Grilled Flank Steak

This one is fast and really tasty.  We've altered the recipe a bit to fit our tastes by using Sesame Oil instead of Vegetable Oil and adding some other vegetables that we like.  We don't use Ponzu that often, but it works really well here.

1/3 Head of Sliced Cabbage

I don't think Cabbage can ever be sliced too thin.  We ended up using only half of what I prepared.

All the rabbit food mixed in a bowl

You could add peanuts or sesame seeds at this point.  Really, anything you have on hand that sounds good should be put in the bowl right now.

Soba Noodles and Sauce mixed in

Everything but the Soba Noodles should be cold and crispy at this point.  Add the sauce right after you add the noodles so that it has time to season everything and keep the noodles from sticking together.

Grilled Flank Steak

I prefer beef that is rare to medium-rare, and Kate likes hers a little less pink than mine.  Usually that means that she gets the pieces on the ends and I get the middle.  I seasoned it with Everglades Seasoning, something I got from my cousin.  (He calls it "monkey dust".  I'm not sure why.)  We used a George Foreman grill tonight because of the weather.

Sliced on the bias and across the grain

Cutting the meat on the bias and across the grain like this makes it easy to chew.  Cutting with the grain tastes the same, but isn't any fun to eat.