A mother-daughter conversation on food and cooking (mostly)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Winter Summer Pasta


It's mid-December, so all our garden herbs are dead except mint and parsley...so I made pasta with mint and parsley. I do what I can to feel alive during the winter.

Cook very slowly in a big pan until light gold:
  • 3 or more cloves garlic, sliced
  • Several T olive oil
Add:
  • some vermouth
  • a can of diced tomatoes
  • red chile flakes
Cook slowly until flavors blend, but don't let tomatoes get that cooked flavor -- maybe 12 minutes?

Add:
  • 1/3 cup ricotta
  • a handful of chopped fresh mint
  • a handful of chopped fresh parsley
  • lots of pepper
  • salt
The ricotta should be just enough to make the sauce a little thicker and richer -- it shouldn't be a cream sauce.

Don't put on as much Parmesan cheese as Lawson did above.

1 comment:

Mark Richardson said...

Looks wonderful, Eva. I'm going to try that.

The other day I decided to cook pasta for dinner. We had a bunch of root vegetables on hand. So I sauteed half a yellow onion & four or five cloves of garlic in some olive oil w/ a few dried chiles & salt & pepper, then added about one cup of diced (1 cm) red carrot (a vegetable I never saw in America--longer than typical American carrots & ruby red in color) plus one cup of diced peeled Japanese sweet potato (the dry kind, w/ lemon-colored flesh--not nearly as sweet or sugary as the orange-fleshed American ones; my nomenclature is hazy here, a la Mr. Wade). After sauteeing the diced carrot & potato in the oil for 4 or 5 minutes I added a can of plum tomatoes & simmered for about 10 minutes. Served it w/ whole wheat pasta. Turned out pretty good, though, as usual, I put too much chile in it--a little on the hot side.