Fresh Zucchini Strand Pasta

After bringing all our freshly picked vegetables home, we had more zucchini than anything else. Rhi suggested we try something she had just seen on another blog, which was a pasta with zucchini peeled into thin strands. We used a peeler to make the strands and tossed this together with some fresh onions and carrots we had slightly boiled to help cook. After letting this heat up over medium heat, I added in a pesto I had made the week before to hold it all together. The result was a really nice, light pasta. It's probably also the freshest meal I've ever made, owing to the fact that the vegetables had been picked less than two hours prior to making it. Hard to top that (but parmesan does a good job).

Early Summer Pasta

After a long winter with little more than cabbage and potatoes, the farmers' markets have started to come back to life. Strawberries and the first crops of cherries are rolling in, along with early summer crops. Lots of snap peas and young plants. We gathered up a good load of ingredients and brought it home to make a simple pasta.

My wife had made the pasta earlier in the day (we've dusted off the pasta roller and have been making ravioli) so I just needed to make the base.

I used asparagus, garlic tops (cut into three inch sections like green beans), beet tops, snap peas, brocolli, and young red onions. I started by sauteeing the onion and garlic tops, then throwing in everything else (save the beet tops). Once they were getting close to done I added the roughly chopped beet tops, a splash of water for moisture, and covered it all up. I let that braise for about five to ten minutes until the beet tops had nicely cooked to a velvety and rich texture. Top the pasta and then use the tops of the young onions for garnish!

Roasted Tomato Sauce

I hate raw tomatoes.  I don't know if I was attacked as a child by tomatoes, or someone wielding them, but I just cringe at the taste and even the smell.  Yet for some reason, I really love roasted, sweet and rich tomato sauce.

Muir Glen makes great fire roasted tomato products, but they were never that sort of meaty, sweet and deep flavor that I really enjoyed. So I set out this morning to make my own off the top of my head.  Luckily, this not only turned out well, but it turned out better than any previous sauce I'd made!

Serves 2

• 10 ripe Roma tomatoes (look for equals sizes to help the roasting process)
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 half stalk celery (skinned, thinly sliced)
• 1 medium carrot (~1/4 cup, thinly sliced)
• 1 medium sized shallot (~1/2 cup, diced)
• 1 tbspn fresh basil (chiffonade)
• 1 tbspn fresh oregano (minced)
• 1 bay leaf

To get the tomatoes in good shape, first skin and de-seed them.  I hate the flavor introduced by the seeds and guts; I'm a big fan of tomato flesh alone.  Place the tomato halves cut-side down on a baking sheet.  Season them with salt, pepper, and a good Italian herb medley.  Add a smattering of skinned garlic cloves to the pan to exchange flavors.  Drizzle with olive oil and put them into a 350 degree oven.  For this experiment I kicked my oven into convection mode.  This seemed to dry the tomatoes out more quickly and speed up the cooking process.  If you don't have a convection oven, you can increase the heat and/or wait longer.

Let the tomatoes roast for about 1.5 hours.  You'll want them to be shriveled and cooked down without too much burning.  I had a little burnt tomato where they met the pan, but it was easily remedied.  Remove the tomatoes from heat and set aside.

Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil (a mix of butter here may have been nice) to a medium saucepan and add the shallots and one clove of minced garlic.  When the shallots have started to become translucent and the garlic is fragrant, add the carrots and celery.  Let these cook for until they're begun to get tender.

Chop the roasted tomatoes into decent sized chunks and add it to the mix.  Add a little water as well to give it room to simmer.  Add a tablespoon of basil (as a chiffonade to be fancy), a tablespoon of oregano, and one bay leaf.  Season with salt and pepper at this point.

Let the sauce simmer for 10-15 minutes.  It should be moist, but not runny.  If the flavor is a little acidic, try adding in a quarter tablespoons of unsalted butter until it rounds out a little.

Orzo with Shiitake Mushroom Sauce

There's a pasta purveyor in the Pike's Place market named Pappardelle's who offers all sorts of odd pasta every week. One of these included the interesting but not very tasty "chocolate linguine".  Along with their interesting wares, they also provide little recipes to go along with them.  This is one of those.

Serves 2

1/2 lb orzo pasta
1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms (cut into slices)
1/3 cup onion (minced)
1/4 tspn garlic (minced)
1 tbspn medium-dry sherry
1/4 cup vegetable stock
1 cup water
1/4 tspn cinnamon
1/4 tspn nutmeg

Saute the onion and garlic until fragrant.  Add mushrooms and continue to saute until they are tender.  Add sherry and cook until it is taken up by the mushrooms.

Add the orzo, water, broth, spices, and season to taste.  Cover and heat over medium-low heat until the orzo is cooked.

In the future I would try thyme or parsley to freshen things up a bit.