Note: I was sent a box of Krusteaz Buttermilk Protein Pancake & Flapjack Mix in order to write this post. Opinions are mine alone.
Happy National Pancake Day! Also known as Shrove Tuesday, coincides with Mardi Gras, the end of Carnevale, and the beginning of Lent. It’s a day to indulge, but you can indulge while still eating something nutritious!
To celebrate National Pancake Day, Krusteaz sent me a box of their new Buttermilk Protein Pancake & Flapjack Mix. This mix is packed with 15 grams of protein per serving! This pancake mix needs just water to become light and fluffy pancakes. For added protein, you can substitute in milk and add eggs to the mix as well!
I decided to up the nutrition of these pancakes with the addition of mashed sweet potato. Not only does it add a bit of sweetness to the pancakes, sweet potatoes are a great source of Vitamins A and C.
With all of the protein and vitamins in this recipe, a little bit of browned butter won’t hurt, right? 🙂 I topped these pancakes with a bit of browned butter chopped pecans and a drizzle of maple syrup to make these Sweet Potato Pancakes with Brown Butter Pecans.
I’m hoping you’ll allow me to post one more cookie recipe this season. These Chewy Gingerbread Cookies are too good to not post!
Every year, my mom and I bake multiple cookie recipes to give to friends and family. While there are some that we bake every year, (like these Hot Cocoa Cookies), we try to make a new cookie each time. After many years of trying to make gingerbread cookies and failing at the decorating part, we decided to try making gingerbread cookies instead.
This recipe makes a wonderfully soft and chewy cookie all with the yummy flavors of gingerbread.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
I was intrigued; I’ve never thought to use beets as a sauce for pasta!
What’s great about this recipe for Gemelli with Brown Butter Beet Sauce and Herbed Citrus Ricotta is that it doesn’t take that much time to make! Beets are typically roasted for 45ish minutes in the oven, but this recipe grates the beets before sauteing to cut down on their cooking time.
I changed the method a bit but the general idea is still there. The result is a beautiful brightly colored pasta with great flavor. It reheats wonderfully as well!
Ingredients:
3 beets, peeled and finely grated in a food processor
1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta
1/4 teaspoon finely grated orange zest, more to taste, plus more for garnish
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage, plus more for garnish
1 teaspoon kosher salt, more as needed
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, more as needed
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 16 oz box gemelli (or other pasta of your choice)
My CSA share this week came with the most beautiful carrots. I am not the biggest fan of carrots but I don’t mind them mixed into a dish. These were too pretty to not use! Cooking Light had a recipe in its latest issue that sounded really intriguing: Champagne-Browned Butter Chicken. The dish is pretty simple to make, although it takes a good hour and a half so this is not a weeknight meal. But the presentation is definitely snazzy enough for company!
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might have picked up on my obsession with pumpkin and butternut squash. I attempt to limit my gourd intake to the September and October months, but every now and then I still need my fix outside of those months. Butternut squash seems to be more socially acceptable, especially in pasta form. Buitoni’s Butternut Squash Agnolotti is the perfect way for me to have this delicious ingredient year-round.
Agnolotti is just a type of ravioli. This specific agnolotti is a “half-moon pasta filled with oven-roasted butternut squash, Impastata Ricotta, aged Parmesan and Grana Padano cheeses, accented with amoretti cookie crumbs. I traditionally use a brown butter sage sauce with butternut squash ravioli because they are a perfect pair. I wanted to try something a little different with this agnolotti, so I instead made a cold pasta salad. It has been so unbearably hot in Philadelphia that I thought this would be a perfect (and timely) twist.Also, don’t forget to enter my giveaway to win a bunch of Buitoni goodies and free Buitoni pasta!
Ingredients:
1 package of Buitoni’s Butternut Squash Agnolotti
½ cup butter
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped
½ cup walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
A handful of golden raisins, or to taste
Salmon and couscous were just made for each other, don’t you think? They are also the perfect choices for a weeknight meal, you’re sure to get food on the table in no time. Cooking Light’s latest issue has a recipe for Grilled Salmon and Brown Butter Couscous that sounded just wonderful. The magazine suggested making this with grilled summer squash. But I stink. And forgot to pick up the squash. Sigh. If you try the squash out with this recipe, let me know how it goes!
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1 cup uncooked couscous
2 tablespoons dry white wine
1 (14.5-ounce) can fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt $
4 (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets
Cooking spray
To make, first preheat your grill to medium-high heat. I live in the city, so I use a grill pan and it works just fine. Add the butter to a small pot over medium heat. Cook for 3 minutes or until browned. Add the pine nuts. Cook for 1 minute stirring occasionally.
So at this stage, I was pretty sure I burnt the pine nuts. Maybe it’ll add a smokiness to the couscous?
Add the couscous and cook for 1 minute, stirring occasionally.
While waiting for the couscous to cook, combine the pepper, ground fennel seeds, ground coriander, sugar, and salt in a bowl. As a note, the original recipe called for white pepper, which I do not have. Also, I have fennel seeds that I stuck in my Magic Bullet and blend until powdery.
Sprinkle fillets with the spice mixture and place on grill, skin side up. Grilled for 4 minutes on each side.
Add the wine and broth and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, remove from heat, and let stand for 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes have passed, fluff with a fork and stir in the lemon rind, lemon juice, salt and pepper.
Yep. Totally burned the pine nuts.
The salmon should be finished slightly after the couscous.
The summer squash would have been a wonderful complement. What was I thinking, making a meal without a vegetable? Oh well.
The flavors were absolutely delicious. The spices on the salmon gave so much flavor, but what I really loved was how great of a sear I got on my salmon. It looks so snazzy!
The couscous was really flavorful, the brown butter and even the pine nuts (which weren’t too burnt to eat, yay!) I love love the hit of citrus with the couscous as well.
To not burn the pine nuts, maybe cook them for about 30 seconds. I also think there’s a chance I never stirred them.. I honestly don’t remember!
Every Easter, we have this adorable little bunny cake that shows up for dessert. I honestly don’t know what bakery we get it from, but it always makes me smile. So I thought I’d try to recreate it. Obviously, a bunny would be filled with carrots, so I decided to make a Bunny Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting, covered in coconut.
I used a recipe from David Lebovitz for the cake and frosting, and used Betty Crocker‘s instructions on how to make it into a bunny.
I was hoping to make Sole Meunière, but the supermarket decided otherwise. (Not only did they not have sole, they had no idea what it was). I substituted flounder, but if you can find sole, go for that instead. I found this classic recipe from Bon Appetit and I’m pretty sure I’ve made this recipe on many occasions and had no idea it had such a spiffy name. “Meunière” just means “miller’s wife.” So to cook something “a la meunière” means to cook it after first dredging it in flour. The sauce is really easy (and again, I’m pretty sure I’ve made it a million times before) and is made of brown butter, chopped parsley and lemon. Despite how easy the recipe is, this makes one tasty dish.
Ingredients for fish:
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 flounder fillets (get Pacific sole if you can)
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
Ingredients for sauce:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Lemon wedges
Pour flour into a shallow bowl. Rinse fish and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper to taste.
Dredge fish on both sides with flour shaking off excess flour.
Heat olive oil in a saute pan big enough to fit all the fish. Add butter and swirl to coat. It should bubble up a bit. When it stops bubbling, add fish and cook until golden on bottom, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Turn fish over (carefully, it’s a pretty delicate fish), and cook until golden on bottom, about 1 to 2 minutes.
Place fish in tin foil and wrap loosely to keep warm.
Pour out excess drippings from the saute pan and wipe down with paper towels. Chop the parsley (as finely as you like).
I did a pretty rough chop
Heat the saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter for the sauce and cook until it begins to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and lemon juice. It may splatter a bit, so be prepared for that. Spoon over the fish and serve with lemon wedges.
Who doesn’t enjoy a recipe that takes 10 to 15 minutes, and only requires 8 ingredients (including salt, pepper, and olive oil)? On top of that, it really is tasty. The fish crisps up nicely in the butter which adds a nice texture. This would be good with a light salad or a side of rice.
I am always in search of seafood dishes that aren’t just salmon. Don’t get me wrong, I love salmon, but I think it’s time for me to finally expand my culinary repertoire. I found this recipe on Food & Wine and was intrigued. Traditional risotto is near and dear to my heart. When I first realized that learning to feed myself may be useful, risotto was one of the first dishes I learned how to make. (Fun fact: I even won a little Top Chef contest in college making my lovely risotto, that’s right). So the idea of an “orzo risotto” made me very happy.
How can you say no to this?
Ingredients: (I cut this recipe in half, the original is linked above)
8 thin asparagus
1 cup orzo
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 pound shelled and deveined medium shrimp
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Ingredients
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Make sure to have plenty of water in there, you’ll need to reserve some of this later. Add the asparagus and cook over high heat until tender, about 5 minutes.
Transfer the asparagus to a plate with a slotted spoon. Add the orzo to the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
While the orzo is cooking, cut the asparagus into 1-inch lengths.
In another skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Once melted, reduce heat to medium and cook until the butter begins to brown
“beurrer noisette” = brown butter by the way
Add the shrimp, season with salt and pepper. I suggest having the salt and pepper right next to the stove, the shrimp start cooking and turning pink almost immediately.
about 10 second after adding the shrimp to the butter
Cook over medium heat until pink and curled, about 1 minute per side.
With a slotted spoon, add the shrimp to the asparagus. Reserve the butter in the skillet but remove from heat.
reserved shrimp and asparagus
Drain the cooked risotto over a bowl, reserving 1/8 cup of the cooking water. Return the orzo to the saucepan and stir in brown butter. Cook over high heat and add the chicken stock and cooking water, scraping up any brown bits that may be stuck to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.
watching orzo cook is comparable to watching paint dry
Cook over moderate heat, stirring until creamy, 2-3 minutes. Stir in asparagus and shrimp.
Remove from heat and stir in parsley and the Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper if needed. Transfer risotto to serving dishes and sprinkle with more Parmesan.
ta da
I love the colors in this dish (if you didn’t pick up on that from the 50 photos you just had to scroll through). Happily, it tastes just as good as it looks. If I make this in the future though, I think I’d prefer the shrimp to have a little bit of a kick (some paprika? maybe a bit of Old Bay? hmm) but this dish is beautiful and tasty just the way it is.
As much as I love cooking, sometimes I am just too exhausted at the end of the day to whip together a tasty meal. But why should my taste buds be punished? So I always keep a few different types of ravioli in my freezer for a quick meal. Tomato sauce on meat or cheese ravioli is great, but I tend to lean towards mushroom, pumpkin, butternut squash, or spinach fillings. So here is a short list of a few different sauces (besides tomato) that you can cook in the time it takes to cook the ravioli.
White Wine Sage Sauce
(great with mushroom ravioli)
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 clove minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried sage
1/2 cup white wine (whatever you have open, I have been using a Pinot Grigio recently)
Optional ingredients:
Truffle oil
Panko bread crumbs
Parmesan cheese (grated or shaved) Note: This is for one serving, so multiply as needed!
To make, add the olive oil to a saute pan. Heat over medium-high heat, and add the garlic and sage. Let cook for one minute. Add the white wine, and turn the heat down to medium-low. Let simmer for a few minutes until it reduces. Remove from heat and pour over cooked ravioli. I really enjoy adding a little drizzle of truffle oil and then topping the ravioli off with panko and parmesan cheese. The truffle oil enhances the flavor of the ravioli and the panko adds a bit of a light crunch to the dish.
Brown Butter Sage Sauce
(great with pumpkin or butternut squash ravioli)
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
4 sage leaves
Lemon juice, to taste
Parmesan cheese, to taste
Note: This is for one serving, so multiply as needed!
To prepare, melt butter in a saute pan until a light brown color appears (about 3 minutes). Add the sage leaves and cook for one minute more (to help the leaves get a little crispy). Remove from heat and add a few drops of lemon juice. Add some Parmesan cheese and mix. Pour over the ravioli and serve.
Brown Butter Sage Sauce with Dried Cranberries
(great with pumpkin or butternut squash ravioli)
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon dried sage
1-2 teaspoons dried cranberries
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Note: This is for one serving, so multiply as needed!
To prepare, melt butter in a saute pan. Add the sage and dried cranberries and cook until a light brown color appears (about 3 minutes). Remove from heat. Add salt and pepper and mix. Pour over the ravioli and serve. Note: If you have walnuts, they would be fantastic in this dish, I just didn’t have any. Toast the walnuts in the oven at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Add the walnuts to the melted butter when you add in the sage and dried cranberries.
Roasted Walnuts – more of a topping than a sauce
(great with cheese or spinach ravioli)
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove chopped garlic
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
Parmesan cheese (grated or shaved), to taste
Note: This is for one serving, so multiply as needed!
To prepare, heat the oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and walnuts and cook until the walnuts are slightly toasted, stirring frequently (about 5 minutes). Add lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parsley. Remove from heat and pour over ravioli. Top with the Parmesan cheese.