Food writer, cookbook author and staff reporter for the New York Times, Melissa Clark and her husband, author Daniel Gercke, are visiting the TODAY kitchen to cook up a romantic meal for Valentine's Day. Together, they show us how to make buttery and bright lemon pasta with toasty almonds and a decadently rich, two-ingredient chocolate mousse.
Brown butter, crunchy almonds and tangy lemon make a rich but balanced sauce for this pantry-friendly pasta. The arugula lends freshness and rounds out the pasta, turning this into a quick one-pot meal. If you want to increase the vegetables, you can double the arugula. (Just add a little more lemon juice.) Don't stint on the red pepper flakes; their spiciness helps bring together the flavors.
This is an intense, creamy two-ingredient chocolate mousse that comes together quickly. The nearly instant recipe contains no cream or eggs, so a complex chocolate can shine. The mousse serves four, and it can be doubled. But even if you're serving two, don't be tempted to halve it.
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