Butter Sage Carrots

I thank my lucky stars for having such a good group of girlfriends here in Seattle.  Last week I had the most lovely group of seven girls over for a midweek dinner party.  We call our dinner gatherings GDC, short for Girls Dinner Club.  It has been an evolving group of girls for over three years.  About once a month, or sometimes once every few months, we either choose a restaurant or go to someone's house to eat, laugh and have girl time. 

We have been loosely using the alphabet to determine the theme...sometimes we mix it up and just go to a place that sounds good.  But this time we focused on the letter 'F', because of a certain hair straightening device: the flat iron.  For months now, we have been talking about the idea of flat ironing my hair, to see what a tamed version of my hair would look like.  I get my hair cut at chez moi, so I was really curious to see how evenly it has been done.  N so kindly brought over the flat iron and French wine. 

My kitchen is quite small for one person.  So multiply that by seven, and you've got lots of windows open, fans going and elbow bumping.  As K said, it was like Thanksgiving dinner...in March.  It was the perfect opportunity to put my kitchen tools and dishes to good use.

We sort of stretched the creativity of the dish names to include adjectives like Fun + Wontons= Funtons.  Our menu items complemented each other so well in color, taste and presentation.  Wow was it all good!  It consisted of:

• Farfalle pasta with pinenuts and roasted red peppers
• Fiesta salad with black beans, avocado, corn and tomatoes
• Asparagus wrapped with blue cheese, prosciutto, bread and butter
• Butter sage carrots
• Shiitake mushroom risotto
• Beef and Broccoli Wontons
• Baked salmon
• Brown sugar glazed pineapple over coconut ice cream

We had so much food and so many leftovers, that the party went on for days.  Thank you M, T, K, M, N, and M for coming over and brightening my life. Xoxo

Penny the mascot and fan of our food

Butter Sage Carrots

Adapted from Cooking Light

Yields 4-5 servings

1 Tbsp butter

1 tsp olive oil

3 cups carrots, diagonally and thinly sliced

1/4 tsp salt

Black pepper to taste

1 1/2 Tbsp fresh sage, diced

Heat a medium/large skillet on medium heat.  Add butter.  After butter melts, add olive oil and swirl around.  Toss in the carrots.  Saute and stir for 5-10 minutes, until carrots are cooked well.  Add salt and pepper to taste, making sure each carrot is coated.  Sprinkle with the sage and saute for a few more minutes.  Serve immediately as a side dish to pasta or chicken.