The theme is butter 🧈

The best sauce – for tortellini, asparagus, and more.

Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, it’s too hot to cook but we do it anyway. Read past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate. 

Rana prosciutto and cheese tortellini with a Lot of Parsley and butter at home

This one.

It’s too damn hot to cook. It’s also too damn hot to lug groceries up my sixth-floor walk-up, but I did it anyway, partly because I forgot I moved. Everything hurts from moving and possibly because I’ve been sleeping on the floor for a week but here we are. When it’s too damn hot to do anything at all I like to buy tortellini in the fridge section at any ole’ grocery store and then make a quick summer meal. The good thing about buying tortellini (which I like more than ravioli) is that it takes 3 minutes to cook instead of however long it takes dried pasta to cook, which is way too long. I usually buy the Rana brand just because I see it everywhere and it’s pretty cheap. I will admit that this “prosciutto and cheese flavor” barely tastes like prosciutto, but it does taste tasty. The only other thing you need to grab at the store is a bunch of flat-leaf Italian parsley. When you go home, bring water to a boil, add a heavy pinch of Kosher salt, and then add the tortellini. Quickly head a saucepan on medium, throw in a tab of butter, and then add lots and lots of washed fresh chopped flat leaf parsley. This is your veggie, unless you make asparagus (below), so be generous. After just a few minutes, the tortellini should float to the top. Spoon it out and swirl in the pan, not bothering to drain the pasta, so some pasta water clings. Salt liberally.

One-pan butter braised asparagus at home

Asparagus from Whole Foods.

When I was 7 or 8 I got violent food poisoning after eating a big meal at my aunt and uncle’s house. The meal contained many things but all I remember is the asparagus. Till this day, I don’t know quite how I feel about asparagus. But Gus, the Theatre Cat helped improve my relationship with it. Every so often, I walk past an asparagus display that looks so nice and fresh I buy it, and then I enjoy it very much, for one meal only. Asparagus is most delicious when it’s very chonky. The best way to make asparagus is to butter-braise it. You can follow a recipe here, but really you don’t need to. Just throw a big tab of salted butter into a heavy saucepan on medium heat. It’s even better if you let it brown a little. Wash, dry and trim your asparagus. Then throw it into the melted butter with a big pinch of salt and a big sprinkle of black pepper. Toss a few times then add a shallow amount of water, cover the pan, and simmer till tender and the water is evaporated. It should still be a beautiful shade of green. Finish with another tab of butter and a generous pinch of salt. The asparagus is so beautiful this way, like a roast, that I almost forgive it for what it did to me.

For bonus points throw in some freshly cooked tortellini, some more salted butter (butter is the theme), and a handful of chopped fresh parsley.

Poppi Prebiotic Soda Strawberry Lemon at Whole Foods

Only the fanciest of Whole Foods.

I love grocery shopping. It’s seriously one of my favorite activities to do with other people, right after going to the Home Depot. It makes you wonder why I am spending nearly my entire paycheck on rent in the city, but I also hate driving, and fear being seen by my neighbors. Recently, I took a little road trip with my friend and she marveled that it was delightful to go grocery shopping with me in the suburbs because I am just endlessly entertained by every aisle. (To be fair, they had a marvelous ice cream cake selection.) Anyways, for a city treat every so often I like to go shopping at the Whole Foods in Wall Street and pretend I am rich or I am dating a Very Rich Man minus the aspect of having to date a Very Rich Man. It’s probably the nicest, cleanest and most air conditioned place I can think of going to and all the produce looks way fancier than the Whole Foods near me, but the weekly deals are the same. For a little treat on a hot day I like to buy some fancy “healthy” sodas. Recently, I’ve been enjoying Poppi’s Strawberry Lemon flavor, which tastes almost exactly like a melted popsicle, except fizzy, which makes everything better.

 Tres Leches Cake at Trader Joe’s

You know where.

I love tres leches cake. Soggy is a great food texture that gets a very bad rep and I’m glad that tres leches can help in the PR department. I think the best part of tres leches is that it feels like eating ice cream in cake form. So when I saw the tres leches cake in the ice cream aisle at Trader Joe’s I just had to get it, even if it was a bit pricey (I think $7.99?) for a TJ’s item. It’s still cheaper than the cost of heavy cream these days, which is what I’d need to make it from scratch. This is a very very good TJ’s dessert item – in fact, I didn’t realize tres leches cake would freeze this well! I might just freeze my own in the future. While it’s not quite as good as Ina’s recipe, which might be the greatest cake of all time, it’s still pretty good in a pinch. Maybe 90% there.  

Subtly Asian potato salad at home

Recipe here.

You think I write this blog for nothing but no I write it because I have OCD so I have to do the same thing every week or else I panic and also because I go into the archives to look up my own damn recipes. Also, I really like connecting with readers, it’s very nice, you are all very friendly and by far the best online community I’ve ever interacted with. I guess it’s a low-ish bar, as in my day job I’m a public facing journalist and in my spare time I’m a Human (?) Woman and those are the two worst things to be online. Anyways, I was craving potato salad so I made this again and it was very good! Maybe you can try it, too?

Soph

P.S. If you can afford it, please consider a paid subscription to Five Things I Ate. The rent in NY is extremely high and this newsletter is a labor of love. Subscriptions are currently only $30 per year, and you gain access to all recipes in the archives, including my famous Pineapple Buns and Mama’s Scallion Pancakes.