This dish came about because my husband and I had to get new sheets.
It's a sad day when your super-soft set of sheets that you've had your entire marriage starts to wear thin. It's an even sadder day when you ignore that fact for a few washings and one day you wake up with your foot through a hole in the fitted sheet. Time to get new sheets.
Since these sheets were given to us, I had no idea how much it cost for brand-new, super soft sheets. Or how extremely confusing the thread count issue can be. Even my husband started weighing in on it. He must have spent a good portion of his day researching sheets because I came home he started a conversation about long staple cotton. Then he went downstairs to pound on the drums. My husband is a true renaissance man.
I took a Family Money Management class in college, and I learned about budgets. My teacher said, "Blah, blah blah, something about money for unexpected events, blah, blah blah." Or something like that. Whatever it was, I don't remember her telling me NOT to make a budget combining household expenses with food expenses. Which, of course, we've done, and which means if you are buying sheets suddenly one month, you have a lot less money for food. Especially when you're not very good at budgeting food necessities.
Being determined to stay under budget this month, I shopped sales, I reduced the fancy cheese purchases and I bought a lot of pasta. It's the end of the month and I've almost made it to August. I was patting myself on the back when it started to rain the night I was going to grill chicken drumsticks. I pushed them off to the next night, which rained again. Let me just tell you now, sale chicken + 3 days in the fridge = not good.
Wanting to stay under budget, I didn't run to the store to get new ones. I have some emergency meals up my sleeve. One of those is one of my husband's favorite meals - buttered noodles. I don't know if I had ever heard of buttered noodles before I met him, but I think it's one of those comfort foods that just tastes good. For myself I like to spice things up a bit, so I made some plain buttered noodles for my husband and threw in some fresh sage (from the herb dude) for myself.
Folks, life is pretty good if you are eating sage buttered noodles, even if you are doing it out of necessity. Life gets even better when you throw in some chopped fresh cherries to give a touch of sweet/tartness to the heavier butter/sage flavor. (The mere fact that I had at least three pounds of fresh cherries on hand shows how bad I am at buying just food necessities.) And when you realize you had dinner on the table faster than if you had gone with the original meal plan, and you just might think this necessity dinner tastes better, that's when life is great.
New sheets and all.
Sage Buttered Noodles with Cherries
Ingredients:
16 ounces egg noodles (since this meal is very simple, use nice noodles here: fresh is you can find them, or at least those fancier ones that are sold in a bag and not a box.)
6 T unsalted butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
6 fresh sage leaves, chopped (about 1 T)
1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4-1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh cherries (could also substitute with 1/8 cup chopped dried cherries or dried cranberries)
Directions:
1. Cook noodles according to package directions; drain.
2. While noodles are cooking, melt butter in the empty pot; simmer onion and sage leaves 3-4 minutes. Add salt and pepper.
3. Toss with noodles. Add more salt to taste and divide among serving bowls.
4. Top with parmesan cheese and cherries just before serving.
Recipe Source: Adapted from food.com
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