Valentine's Day Course 3: Roasted Butternut Squash Ravioli with a Sage Brown Butter Sauce

For our third course, I decided to make a tasty butternut squash ravioli. This is to be served in a sage brown butter sauce. The recipe is from Emeril Lagasse and can be found on The Food Network's website.

Here is the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/roasted-butternut-squash-ravioli-with-a-sage-brown-butter-sauce-recipe/index.html

As with all of my Valentine's Day planning, I tackled this recipe the day before. I roasted the butternut squash and then made a lovely mix with them that included shallots, the roasted butternut squash and several spices.

While this cooled, I made pasta and rolled it out into thin sheets. I then placed dollops of filling on the sheets and layered another sheet of pasta on top. I pressed down in between the dollops and cut the individual ravioli with my rotating cutter.

I then froze the ravioli. On Valentine's Day, when we were ready for the third course, I boiled a pot of water and worked on the brown butter sage sauce while it boiled. I then boiled the ravioli for about seven minutes (until they were floating) and placed them in the butter sauce.

The ravioli were excellent. I had but one regret. Following the plan, I rolled out the pasta. I can NEVER get pasta as thin as when I break out my old fashioned pasta roller and really work it out. The pasta came out a bit too thick for my liking, but I know that by using the roller, I will definitely have a different result.

MMM...roasted butternut squash! I could eat it just like this!!

Sauteing the shallots!

Making the ravioli!!

Finished dish! Ready to be served!!

This dish was wonderful and made great leftovers for lunch the next day!! I served it with a heavier Chardonnay which was recommended to complement buttery dishes. They went very well together!

Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 8 (would have been 8.5 if I had rolled the pasta thinner!!)
Awesome Sauce: 7.5

Valentine's Day Course 2: White Onion Soup with Chive Truffle Oil

For our second course on Valentine's Day, I decided to make White Onion Soup with Chive Truffle Oil. This recipe was also found on Epicurious. Here is the recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/White-Onion-Soup-with-Chive-Oil-15102

I made this soup and the chive oil the day before and kept them in the fridge. When we were ready for our second course, I heated up some soup, shaved some Parmesan cheese on the soup and drizzled some of that beautiful chive oil on the soup.

This soup was very boring. The only interesting part was the chive oil (I MUST find another use for this delightful culinary treat!) and the Parmesan. This soup was so boring, we never finished it!! The rest of the soup went into the garbage! (This is a lot from us, Awesome Sauce is usually quite the bottomless pit and will eat even some of our biggest culinary disasters just to not waste it!). I wasn't impressed.

Here are pictures of the process and the finished product:

The white onions are in my soup pot slowly cooking down.

The finished product!! Yeah...I added a lot of shaved Parmesan and Chive Oil to attempt to make it tasty...

Ratings:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 3
Awesome Sauce: 4

Valentine's Day Course 1: Mini Crab Cakes with a Garlic Aioli on a Bed of Mixed Greens with Lemon Vinaigrette

So, as a new resident of Maryland, I have been searching for the perfect Maryland Crab cake recipe to impress visiting family and friends. Awesome Sauce and I met at the University of Maryland and in tribute, I decided that the first course in our Valentine's Day meal, I would make us Mini Crab cakes with a Garlic Aioli on a Bed of Mixed Greens with Lemon Vinaigrette. Yum!

I found the recipe on Epicurious. Here is the link:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Crab-Cakes-and-Baby-Greens-with-Lemon-Vinaigrette-5762

Here is the link to the Garlic Aioli:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Aioli-107026

I wanted to make sure that this was easy to do, so I prepared the mixture the day before. I looked to the comments and used some of their suggestions. I used panko instead of regular bread crumbs. I also added Old Bay seasoning to taste. I also prepared the Lemon Vinaigrette and Garlic Aioli ahead of time and kept them in the fridge.

On Valentine's Day, I formed little crab cakes and fried them in a small skillet. While they were cooking, I took some of the lemon vinaigrette and tossed it with the mixed greens. I was a bit disappointed to find the lemon vinaigrette had turned into a thick paste. However, as it warmed up and mixed with the greens, it turned into a lovely, refreshing vinaigrette. It became the perfect background for the crab cakes.

The garlic aioli was wonderful! It was a great complement to the crab cakes and I strongly recommend it if you choose to make this recipe.

These crab cakes were incredibly simple to make. I loved that I could mix them the day before and then merely fry them the day of. With slightly larger crab cakes, this would make a great and impressive entree for an elegant dinner party. I strongly recommend using the panko and the old bay seasoning. This was great advice.

Crab Cake mix ready to go in the fridge. I used jumbo lump Weis-brand crab from a can. Not the freshest, but it was simply wonderful. The seasoning for this dish is incredibly well balanced.

Frying the crab cake in some oil. (yes, I see the spill on the side, I spill many things...this is one reason why I am The Clumsy Gourmet!)

Beautifully fried mini crab cakes.

First course plated and ready to go!!!

The crab cakes are ready for their close-up!

The crab cakes were WONDERFUL!! We paired them with a light, fresh pinot grigio. Awesome Sauce, who is not a huge fan of crab cakes absolutely loved these. The next day, we even turned the left over crab cakes into a wonderful breakfast. We re-heated the crab cakes and put them on toasted whole wheat bread, added poached eggs and hollandaise sauce and enjoyed Eggs Chesapeake.


Ratings
The Clumsy Gourmet: 10
Awesome Sauce: 9-9.5

We really enjoyed them!!

UPDATE: Using our Eggs Chesapeake recipe, we fed both my mother and sister. Both LOVED the crabcakes and really enjoyed the brunch we prepared for them. Two more fans of this amazing recipe!