Sage Brown Butter Snow Day

Yesterday was pretty wonderful.  I declare, to no one's surprise, that random Tuesday snow days, for this non-teacher, are a special delight. My boss decided on Monday, with the serious blizzard predictions for Tuesday, that she would just close the office. It was like having a mini weekend in the middle of the week. Twelve inches of snow and insanely strong winds and drifting piles of the white stuff kept us locked inside. But locked inside a warm house with plenty of books, movies, my cuddly husband and dog, and pajamas. It was a free day. I read and cooked and watched an engrossing documentary and the embarrassingly rancorous and greasy Real Housewives reunion. And I cooked a lot: a loaf of banana bread so I could finally get rid of those nasty looking bananas in my freezer, and scrambled eggs with shallots and cheese, easy chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese for lunch and then the new recipe of the week. This recipe was so easy that I'm not even sure it should count as one of the new recipes.

On Sunday in Omaha, we stopped by the delightful Trader Joe's to pick up a few treats. And their butternut squash ravioli caught my eye.  At Biagi's on Saturday night, I couldn't decide between their squash ravioli in sage butter sauce and the balsamic grilled chicken. I went with the chicken, which was tangy, juicy, healthy happiness on a plate, but I kept thinking about that ravioli. And there they were just innocently sitting on the shelf at Trader Joe's. Smiling and waving at me, I swear. Just googled a sage butter sauce, and here we have a decadent snow day dinner. I'm pretty sure half a stick of butter in a sauce wouldn't be considered a healthy meal, but it's a free day!

The recipe is basically cook half a stick of butter until it starts to turn brown, with little flavorful dark bits, then toss in the fresh sage leaves, remove the sauce from the heat, swirl around, add lemon juice, some of the pasta water, plenty of parmesan and it's dinner time. The ravioli was almost too sweet, but the sharp lemon/sage flavor of the sauce helped balance that out. I think this sauce would be good on any kind of pasta, or sopped up with crusty Italian bread, or simply eaten with a spoon all by itself. But again, that's how much we all know I love butter. Tomorrow, back to healthy and lists and treadmills and goals, but this free day was niiiice.