Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Shortcuts...

This post doesn't have anything to do with coffee, but it does have a lot to do with food and I wanted to share my recent cooking experience.

Brian, my husband makes the most wonderful dishes.  I know that I am a lucky woman to have a husband who cooks and who cooks well!  He can make a delicious pasta sauce from fresh ingredients in our refrigerator that I didn't even know we had.  A sauce of any kind can make or break a dish.  If the sauce is bad and if it is smothering even the freshest seafood, farm vegetables or tenderloin medallions - the entire dish can be ruined. 

This weekend, I discovered a wonderful shortcut / cheat if you will - and many of you may already know this trick - even so, keep reading.... 

I love pasta, but I am not a fan of canned or jarred sauces.  However, if Brian isn't cooking, I am too intimidated to make a sauce.  I've tried a couple of times in the past and it wasn't pretty or delicious.  : (

We had purchased local lobster ravioli that our grocery store happened to be carrying.  It was fresh frozen, but locally made with ingredients I recognized - that was a good start!  Then, I traveled over to the deli section where I found lobster bisque (soup) - made with lobster stock, romano cheese and lots of goodness listed on the ingredient label. 

So, last night we thought to ourselves...selves...what if we made the ravioli and used the lobster bisque as a pasta sauce...and so we did and it was quite good and SO easy.  The lobster bisque would have been great with added sauteed shrimp or crab or other freshly grilled seafood and with any kind of pasta not just ravioli.  I think I would have liked sauteed sliced portabello mushrooms...the possibilities are endless. 

In the deli, I also remember seeing a tomato bisque soup with black pepper and great chunks of goodness.  This might be my next sauce / soup / pasta experiment.  Now this is a sauce even I can make!