Recipe: Brown Butter Tortellini with Toasted Garlic and Asparagus
Source: Woman's Day Magazine
http://www.womansday.com/recipefinder/brown-butter-tortellini-toasted-garlic-asparagus-recipe-wdy0513
Time: 25 minutes
Ease: 3
Taste: 8
Leftover Value: No leftovers, but I would imagine they are fabulous. Perhaps even try them cold?
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer (said Hubby!)
Every month, my grandmother saves her Woman's Day Magazine for me. She started this after she realized there were occasional contests held, starting with a random one which involved writing. She said to me, "The clothing in there (the magazine) is corny, but you should enter the contests! And they have yummy recipes in there too."
I am a magazine fiend, so it didn't take much convincing. I have, sadly, had to give up some of my subscriptions because I just didn't have the time to get to them each month. Whenever I do get the chance to veg out and leaf through magazines filled with recipes, house decorating tips, clothing combinations, and organizational strategies, I'm in heaven.
Last summer, in Woman's Day Magazine I found a fun ice cream recipe that doesn't require an ice cream maker. That's a bonus for me.
Go here to read about it.
I hadn't tried any real food recipes until recently. I do this thing where I tear out the recipes from magazines that I'm interested in. I then let them pile up and either decide I don't really want to make them or I file them in my magazine recipe binder where they sit for a little longer before getting made. Or thrown away. It totally depends on my mood and my connection to the picture in the recipe.
My little brother, Jonathan, was over for dinner last Monday. After flipping through my recipe binder, he found "Brown Butter Tortellini with Toasted Garlic and Asparagus", pointed to it, and gave the affirmative that he wanted to have that for dinner. I found it to be a bit of a strange choice for him considering he hardly eats veggies, and the picture was chock full of the green of asparagus.
His mind was made up, so that was the recipe we would make.
What I liked about this recipe was that it had a short list of ingredients which did not involve an absurd amount of prepping.
What I did not like what that said ingredients were not items I currently had on hand.
After how easy and delicious this recipe was, I am definitely going to stock up on tortellini. Hubby is a picky man when it comes to cheese filled noodles. He does not like cheese raviolis, he does not like manicotti, he does not like stuffed shells. You can see another reason why I hesitated in making this recipe.
His problem is ricotta. He does not like ricotta. He also does not like cottage cheese.
That makes me sad.
When we decided to have tortellini, I noted that they had ricotta in them, but decided Hubby would have to just live with it.
The good news is, I think he liked this recipe even more than I did. I'm sure I have not brought him to the side of loving ricotta, but at least it is a start.
The next ingredient was lemon. Note: I did have lemons in my fridge, but they were growing hair and other accessories so I decided to purchase a fresh one.
While the water for the tortellini is boiling, the lemon needs to be stripped of it's zest, then sliced thin.
This is fairly easy. Once you've stripped the lemon almost bare, chop up the remainder and throw it into a cold pitcher of water.
Only if you're into that kind of thing.
Lay the lemon strips to the side and pull out the next two ingredients: asparagus and garlic.
Ah, both of these items should always be on hand in my house. Sadly, that was not the case. I'm thinking I have been slacking on grocery shopping. Shhhh....don't tell Hubby.
I sliced the asparagus up into thirds. Now, if you're one of those people that wrinkle your nose up to asparagus, don't knock it unless you've tried it.
I fell in love with asparagus completely by accident. I was twelve and my mom and I were out on a mother-daughter-date in Princeton. The weather was obnoxiously hot. We had just been walking around the Institute for Advanced Study where my mom had once worked as a secretary. It was time to eat, and we ran into the first restaurant we saw without thinking twice about what it looked like on the outside.
Our t-shirts and shorts were clearly too simple for this place. The waiter came over straight backed, prim and propered up, and handed us our very short menus. The only thing we cared about was the water on our table. After we had completely emptied our water glasses we began looking over the menu. There were only five or six items listed, and they were all a mixture of French and English. I peeked over my menu at my mom, wondering if we were going to stay. The prices were much higher than we'd ever, ever, spent on a mother-daughter-date.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Well, the only thing I see here that I like is filet minon," I said with hesitation. "But, I mean, it costs a lot. Do you think we should leave?"
My ever classy mom said no, that we were going to stick it out here, so long as there was something on the menu I'd eat.
"What does asparagus taste like?" I asked looking at the side that came with my over priced steak.
"Grass," she answered.
While that still today is my mother's (and most other people's) opinion of asparagus, that day I found a vegetable that I actually loved.
Melt some butter in a skillet.
Toss in your delicious, non-grassy asparagus.
Chop up two cloves of garlic and add it to the skillet.
Sprinkle in a little salt...
and pepper.
After the asparagus and garlic have cooked in the butter for a few minutes, add the lemon zest.
If you've timed your tortellini properly, they should be done boiling about now and be ready to add to the skillet. If you're an over achiever like me, they have probably been done for about five minutes. I just ran a little cold water over them to keep them from sticking and let them wait it out in the sink.
Here is an ingredient I didn't have fresh on hand or even in my spice rack. In fact, I don't think I've ever even seen it before.
Tarragon.
FYI: It smells a lot like black licorice.
FYI: I'm not a fan of black licorice.
Add the tarragon to the skillet.
Then top it off with some fresh Parmesan (finally, something I already had in my fridge!).
At this point, I just let the skillet sit on the stove top for a few extra minutes with the heat on low to melt the cheese. Then I tossed it around a little before serving.
Here's how yummy this side was, I made it for Jonathan and Hubby on Monday. Then, I made it again on Wednesday.
The only complaint Hubby had was that there was a little too much lemon flavor. But if you're into that, like I am, you can just ignore comments like that.
