Friends for Dinner

Recently we had friends over for dinner.   I wanted to make a nice easy meal and wanted it to have great Italian flavor.

Now remember, I am not a food blogger so the pictures aren’t going to be perfect.  My cooking is purely because I LOVE it and I enjoy feeding people.

I chose Broccoli rabe  filled ravioli and a sage brown butter sauce.  It is simple with so much flavor.  I don’t use as much butter as some recipes suggest.  I find the butter to be too over powering.  I want to taste the nutty flavor of the brown butter but I want to be able to taste my food.

For nine ravioli I use about four tablespoons of unsalted butter.  I use a heavy small sauté pan and over medium high heat I melt the butter.  After it melts, I add fresh sage leaves, salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

I have made this using thyme and fresh rosemary.  Both are also very good.

Once the sage is added it will pop a bit because it is frying slightly in the butter.  Once the butter gets brown you have to be careful, it burns quickly once it gets brown.  Now, if you are not a sage person, let me tell you when you have fried sage it is a whole different flavor.  It’s VERY, VERY good.  John doesn’t like to eat a whole piece of herbs but this he really enjoys. 

For bread, I used a pizza dough and rolled it out and filling it with shredded mozzarella and sundried tomato pesto I made.  I followed that  with an egg was, the flavors together are amazing. 

Now for dessert I made homemade chocolate cups with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.  I used the leftover chocolate I had  and made  chocolate ovals and placed a toasted almond on top so it stuck inside the chocolate.

Look for a post soon and I will let you know how I make my chocolate cups.

Our friends were thrilled with everything.  When friends come over and love to eat and enjoy a nice meal, wine and conversation with some laughs it makes my heart sing.