Pasta Primavera

Last night was a clean out the fridge kind of meal.  We had all kinds of little bits--half a small cauliflower, a handful of snap peas, a bunch of sprouting greens, half a small can of San Marzano tomato, half a grilled fennel bulb and grilled asparagus.  We chopped this all up (in varying sizes), added some garlic, butter and olive oil and heated it all through.  Just before we tossed in some pasta we added a little "gremolata" (our mixture had lemon zest, garlic, oregano, marjoram and parsley).  It was sooooo good.  Now I have to admit that we did not go completely vegetarian.  We added a frozen cube of homemade chicken broth to the vegetable mixture to simmer before the pasta (but this is fantastic without it).  If you go veggie don't drain all your pasta water.  Just keep about a quarter cup in the pot with the hot pasta and toss all of it in the sauce.  The water will finish steaming any uncooked vegetables and not rinsing off the starch from the pasta will bind the dish together.  We use Chitarra pasta with this dish.  This is a spaghetti that has rough edges so the sauce really sticks to it.
We put a wedge of parmesan and grater on the table so each person could add the amount of cheese they wanted.  This and a nice bottle of white wine--it was a perfect Spring dinner.

edited to add:  If you have leftovers in the morning whisk up some eggs, pour them over the top, fry it up and eat eat eat.

Comments

[carolyn]

Thanks for the recipe. I have bits of veggies in my fridge and now I know what I'm having for dinner. Looking forward to it!