Balsamic Brown Butter Pasta

Put down that jar of tomato, Alfredo, pesto, or vodka sauce for your pasta. I'm about to share something totally awesome and different with you. This pasta dish is glazed with Balsamic Brown Butter. Balsamic (vinegar), brown (sugar), and butter (spread) create this amazing taste that you will not soon forget! 

This dish was so good that when I went to transfer it to a leftover container, I ate a piece...and another...and another, stone cold while I was cleaning the kitchen until I should have just had a plate. I will be making it again, and variations of it, often. In fact, I loved it cold! Maybe I'll have to see about a variation for a pasta salad. Hmm...

I love this line of Barilla Veggie pastas. They not only give you an extra veggie serving, but they are a colorful addition to any dish. You won't be able to tell the difference either. I promise! My only complaint about them is that I can't readily find them in my local Market Basket when I want to buy them. They come in 3 varieties of rotini, farfalle, and penne and I love each one. Do yourself a favor and give these a try. 

1 box of your favorite pasta

1 can or package of salad shrimp

1 lb fresh asparagus

1 Tbsp olive oil

mixed up salt, to taste

mixed up pepper, to taste

1 Tsp brown sugar

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp spreadable butter

 

Recipe Adapted from Food And Wine

 

Cook pasta according to package directions. Cut hard ends off asparagus and then slice, at an angle, into 1 inch pieces. Place the asparagus on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Roast in a 400 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, until they are bright green. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the balsamic vinegar with the sugar until it boils. Let it keep heating and reducing, until there are only a few tablespoons left. At this point, stir in the butter and let it melt. Mix well, as soon as the butter is completely melted, remove from heat and stir in the shrimp. Pour directly over the pasta and toss with asparagus. I didn't even use any Parmesan cheese on this dish, the flavors are bold enough!

Greek Shrimp

A few years ago, I signed up for a Greek cooking class from North Shore Community College. I really just wanted to learn how to use Filo dough better and the teacher quickly asked why I wasn't teaching the class instead! While I was having a good time catching up with my high school friend Katie, who had recently married a Greek guy and wanted to surprise him with a few dishes, I did manage to perfect my use of the dough as well as nab this great dish that I never would have really thought of by myself. It's a wonderful wine reduction that I never fail to get rave reviews on! My friend, Alyssa, also took this to a party and told me that the dish was scraped clean!

 

Just make sure you use a good wine because it will be the dominant taste of the dish. Never cook with any wine if you wouldn't want to drink it.

 

3 Tbsp olive oil

2 ½ cups chopped onions

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

1 clove minced garlic

½ Tsp sugar

3 Cups chopped plum or cherry tomatoes

1 Cup Retsina or white cooking wine

1 ½lbs peeled shrimp

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Warm the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until a light golden brown, about 7 minutes. Add the parsley, garlic, and sugar and stir to mix. Add the tomatoes and cook until they soften and the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Add the wine to the skillet and cook until the liquid is absorbed. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 seconds. They will cook really fast!

 

 Remove from the heat. Pour contents into a casserole dish. Top with feta cheese and bake until cheese melts, about 5 minutes.

 

 

Broccoli and Rabe Sausage with Orzo

The other day I ran into Stop & Shop to pick up a few things. I really never shop there so I decided to look around a bit. I found this great broccoli and rabe sausage! I mean look at the colors in the photo below, it just looked so good. I searched Pinterest for some inspiration on sausage dishes but didn't come up with much. I actually really didn't even know what rabe was!
 

(räb) A vegetable plant (Brassica rapa) related to the turnip and grown for its pungent leafy shoots. Also called rapini.
 

I sent myself into the kitchen and came up with this little gem that my husband raved about.

1 lb broccoli and rabe sausage

(or really any sausage if you can't find something like this)

1/2 box cooked orzo

1/2 cup white wine or cooking wine

1/4 cup milk

1 Tbsp flour

1 cup chicken or beef broth

1 Tbsp minced garlic

1/4 cup chopped onions

1 Tbsp olive oil

4 cups steamed broccoli

Parmesan cheese (to taste)

Cook orzo to package directions and steam broccoli (I did use a Fresh n' Steam package because it was all I had at the time). Chop up the sausage links into about 1 inch pieces and saute over medium heat until thoroughly cooked, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped onion and garlic.

 

I love cooking with garlic and onions, so I buy minced garlic to keep in the fridge and cut up an onion or two at the beginning of the week and keep it in an onion saver to cook with it.

 

Let the oil from the sausage caramelize the onions a bit and then you can begin to assemble your sauce in the pan. Add the oil and stir and then add in the chicken broth. After a few minutes of simmering, add in the wine.

 

I used a Pinot Grigio, which just happened to be the "3 buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's my husband was working on in the fridge at the moment.

 

The last steps are adding the milk and flour to cream up and thicken your sauce. If you don't trust yourself adding the flour directly to the pan and being able to avoid any lumps, mix it ahead of time in the cold milk and then add them. I cooked this sauce as a reduction so I simmered everything for about 10 more minutes on medium-low and then tossed in the broccoli and the orzo. Add some Parmesan cheese to top this and you have one delicious original meal!

 

 

Hindsight:

(My plan is to add tips to my recipes. I tend to experiment a lot and not usually follow recipes so if I discover something along the way in writing these, I'll share the tips here.)

My husband likes everything with "light sauce", so I tend to cook that way. If I make this dish again, I'd like it a bit saucier. I'd up the recipe on everything in the sauce by 50% so you might consider doing that.