I’ve been craving a lot of thing recently. The cinnamon rolls, brownies, hot chocolate. Given that I have some time off, I’ve actually indulged in baking, but today I wanted sauce. A warm, buttery sauce. Most of my sauce experiments were paired with meat dishes and since we’ve had more meat dishes than I really want in the last few weeks, I decided to try a vegetarian dish with a killer sauce.

I started with roasting some butternut squash and getting a pot of egg noodles going. I though about quinoa or another healthier option, but today was about indulging so I went with the noodles. For the sauce … One shallot, two tablespoons white wine vinegar, about an eighth of a cup of white wine and some chopped sage. My little sage plant is still hanging in there. Every time I think it’s done, it just comes back enough to keep it in the ground. I brought this to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it reduce until there was a thick, almost syrup in the pot.

Once it was reduced, I added some water. I didn’t measure, but somewhere around two tablespoons and then about four to five tablespoons of butter, chopped into pieces and added one piece at a time. I kept the flame super low so the sauce wouldn’t break, and stirred constantly. I added salt and pepper to taste but skipped the squeeze of lemon as the wine I used had a pretty good lemon flavor in it already.

I originally bought the wine because of the label, but go back for it because it is a good wine for both cooking and drinking. It’s not fancy, but it had a nice acidity without hitting you over the head with it, and no grapefruit flavor. Sorry, but I really do not like grapefruit – as a fruit or in my wine.

But the dish. I drained the egg noodles, added the butternut squash then added the sauce and mixed it all together so the sauce would coat the noodles and add an extra flavor to the squash. The results were a resounding success and it didn’t take long at all. For a total experiment it was great and I’m just sorry there aren’t any leftovers.