Thursday nights tend to be the last opportunity to use up the last of the fresh produce in my fridge. Friday nights we usually go out for dinner and the new CSA box comes on Saturday. And, as I’m sure you already know, organic produce is more perishable than conventional produce. What do they do to conventional produce that makes it last so long? Never mind… I don’t want to know.

Last night I had three ears of corn and a sweet onion left from my box. The corn was so deliciously sweet that it barely needed any cooking. I could have eaten it raw… but I didn’t. Ok, I ate some of it raw but only a little. I forgot to defrost any chicken or turkey, so dinner was likely to include pasta.

I googled a bit to see what I could do with the corn aside from just eating it on the cob. I found a thread on Chowhound that referenced a recipe from Chef Suzanne Goin’s Sunday Suppers at Lucques. I wasn’t familiar with Chef Goin, but that didn’t last long. The recipe was for gnocchi with chantrelles, corn, and sage brown butter. How could that possibly be bad?! It couldn’t.

My husband doesn’t like mushrooms, so no chantrelles in my dish. Plus, I had that onion hanging out in my fridge so I decided to include that. I had whole wheat pasta, but that sounded boring. I ran into Whole Foods on my way home from work to pick up some gnocchi. They had gnocchi, but they also had so many other wonderful looking pastas. I stood there for no less than five minutes just staring at the pastas… crab ravioli, gorgonzola gnocchi, fresh rigatoni, etc. I couldn’t just get regular old gnocchi! I grabbed a package of ricotta cavatelli and a package of sweet potato gnocchi. Have one tonight and save one for later. Perfect!

I decided to go with the ricotta cavatelli. It sounded too delicious not to make immediately. While the pasta cooked, I cut the corn from the cobs and chopped the onion. I have sage growing in pots on my deck, so I pulled a few leaves.

I sauteed the onion until it was almost translucent and then added the corn. As I mentioned, the corn was so delicious raw that I really just wanted to cook it enough to make a bit more tender. Just a couple minutes of sauteeing did the trick.

I removed the corn and onion from the pan and added a stick of butter. Oh yes… a whole stick of butter. I’m basically Paula Deen minus the bacon.

I’ve never browned butter before, so I was a little nervous. I turned to Chowhound again for some advice. I kept the butter over medium heat and stirred… it bubbled and foamed a little bit… I kept stirring. I then added about 3/4 of the sage to the butter. The butter started to brown so I pulled the pan from the heat. I probably could’ve let it brown a bit more, but I was afraid of burning it. Next time…

Once the butter was done, I mixed it together with the pasta and the corn/onion mixture. Then into bowls and garnished with the rest of the sage. Yes, I garnished. I’m very fancy.

Oh boy, oh boy, was this tasty! I mean, it is covered in butter so it was obviously delicious. The corn added a great sweetness that really complimented the earthiness of the sage. The ricotta cavatelli was fantastic! It was perfectly al dente! Dense, but not too heavy. The texture was really amazing.

I rarely make pasta for company… lasagna or baked ziti, but never just a big bowl of pasta. This dish was definitely company-worthy. You could use any veggies and herbs that you like. The brown butter was really what pulled it all together.