Tuesday: Spaghetti alla carbonara....sort of

"Spaghetti alla carbonara" with summer squash.

This recipe, from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, substitutes summer squash and an onion for the bacon or pancetta that gives spaghetti alla carbonara its artery-clogging goodness. Never fear, cholesterol lovers: this recipe still calls for some eggs and Parmesan, so we trust it's not TOO healthy.

Saturday: The other "C" word

Delfino cilantro pesto.

As we mentioned previously, we recently learned that the original pesto may in fact have been cilantro rather than basil.  When we picked up this lacy varietal of cilantro, we decided we'd try taking pesto back to its roots.














Otherwise, this is just a standard pesto with Parmesan, garlic, walnuts and a generous amount of olive oil.  Despite her cilantrophobia, Lizz gave this dish her seal of approval.

Thursday: Asparagus pasta

Whole-wheat pasta with purple asparagus and Parmesan, tossed with lemon. 

After many weeks of being foiled by the early-morning greenmarket shoppers, we finally got our hands on some beautiful purple asparagus.














yes, asparagus too can be purple.

Elizabeth Schneider, in her Vegetable Book, claims that she has found purple asparagus to be uniformly good, and indeed we thought this bunch was particularly sweet and tasty.  It was good in this pasta, but if you happen to get your hands on some we recommend that you just roast it and eat it plain in order to experience its full flavor.

Tuesday: Tamago

Tamago (Japanese sweet omelet) with mizuna in sesame oil and soba noodles.

Mizuna is a type of mustard green which originated in China, but is most commonly found in Japanese cuisine.  Smaller leaves can be eaten raw, but large mizuna benefits from cooking, and - like other mustards - can stand up to braising or boiling.  We boiled this mizuna until tender, chopped it fine, and then tossed it with some good sesame oil and soy sauce to taste.

Tamago (just the Japanese word for egg) may be well-known to you as a type of nigiri sushi, but it also does well on its own.  We followed this recipe and it turned out delicious and light.  Don't be intimidated if you don't have a "tamago pan" - we just used a standard frying pan.

Tuesday: Re-pesto

Sorrel-garlic chive pesto.

We've been making a lot of pestos, including one with sorrel, but this was another nice variation: we threw in garlic chives, instead of garlic or ramps.  As part of our pesto experimentation, we've just been substituting whatever allium we happened to have around the house for the standard garlic cloves.  So far they've all passed muster.

Friday: Mac and cheese, Esq.

Monday: Where the wild greens are

Whole-wheat spaghetti with anchovies, Parmesan, and wild Italian arugula.

This is yet another simple pasta based around an interesting-tasting green. Like a few veggies faithful readers will have seen on the blog lately, some wild arugula is a foraged green, albeit one with a familiar cultivated relative. However, according to Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini, a cultivated form of "wild arugula" has been introduced. We're not actually sure which one we have. In either case, the taste of wild arugula is not too different from that of its better-known relative - maybe a bit spicier. Wild arugula has thinner stems, much smaller leaves, and a darker color.

The arugula in this recipe is briefly sauteed to tame its heat and then folded into the pasta. A small amount of the raw greens made a nice garnish.

Thursday: On a Ramp-age

Macaroni and cheese with sauteed ramps.

This is just our typical mac and cheese recipe - quick-sauteed ramps made a sweet, oniony side dish.

Wednesday: Sorrel-ramp pesto

Sorrel-ramp pesto.

You might be unaware, faithful reader, that sorrel is a leafy green had you only encountered it on our blog last year. Thankfully our improved camera can do justice to the beautiful, bright parrot green color of this early spring veg.

Although we used to think that pesto was synonymous with basil, we've come to realize that any leafy green with a strong flavor can serve as the base of this sauce. Here, we take advantage of the bright, tart flavor of sorrel. Since basil pesto typically includes a few cloves of garlic, we instead threw in a handful of ramps, which added another complex but not overpowering flavor. A quarter cup or so of walnuts and a half cup or so of grated Parmesan were the final ingredients. Delicious.

P.S. Speaking of pesto, if you haven't seen this recent article by Harold McGee on the great cilantro debate, you might want to check it out. Apparently it was cilantro, not basil, that served as the base of "traditional" Mediterranean pesto!

Tuesday: Veggie pasta

Whole wheat pasta with broccoli-white bean-cashew topping.

This is our usual broccoli-based pasta sauce, but for a little protein we added white beans and cashews which we toasted separately.

Monday: Summer squash pasta

Whole wheat pasta with summer squash-walnut sauce, topped with Parmesan.

This is another good example of how a pasta sauce can be made from basically any vegetable. Some frozen mixed summer squashes from our CSA were sauteed with a little olive oil and tossed with dried thyme and walnuts.

Thursday: Peas, love, harmony

Yin (macaroni and cheese) and yang (peas).

Not much new to say about this meal - faithful readers will have seen it a few times before - but for your viewing pleasure, we have resorted to playing with our food.

Wednesday: Broccoli Breakthrough

Broccoli and feta "pesto" on whole wheat spaghetti.

Some vegetables are easy to incorporate into a main dish; broccoli, on the other hand, is one of those vegetables that doesn't play nicely with others. We usually serve it a side dish, which by definition means that we must also have a main dish. But here broccoli plays the starring role, blended with feta cheese and lemon juice to create a tangy but substantial "pesto" sauce for whole wheat spaghetti.

Wednesday: Home again home again

Simple pasta with tomato and bell pepper sauce, topped with grated parmesan.

This was our first meal this winter made with ingredients from our frozen CSA, Winter Sun Farms. Both the tomato puree and chopped bell peppers came to us in cute little frozen packages. Otherwise, this is a pretty typical pasta sauce for us and a good way to ease back into the post-holiday routine.

Monday: Squashmas

Pasta with roasted butternut squash and ricotta salata, served with hot mulled apple cider.

We originally got this recipe from the Times, but have made it a few times since then and come to love it. It's quite easy: just cube and roast the squash, then toss with cooked pasta and grated ricotta salata cheese. A little parsley and sage or rosemary go in for flavor and color.

Oh - and as you can see, Christmas has arrived here at D4SA...

Wednesday: Pasta with parmesan

Pasta with anchovy-tomato sauce and grated parmesan.

This typical red pasta sauce with canned tomato was definitely enlivened by the Parmaggiano reggiano we realized we still had in the fridge.

Thursday: Pasta reprise

Whole-wheat penne with cauliflower-anchovy sauce.

This is another of our standby meals for a weeknight when we don't have much time to cook.

(Can you tell we've been busy lately?)

Thursday: Raddichio pasta

Spaghetti with octopus and slivered Treviso radicchio.

We recently made a pasta with mustard greens and goat cheese; this one is rather similar, although radicchio doesn't have quite the same bite as mustard greens do.

Monday: Simple Pasta

Penne with anchovy-tomato sauce.

Well, tomato season is winding down...which means that this is probably the first dish we've posted in which we used canned tomatoes.

Our modern conventional food production system does allow grocery stores to stock "fresh" red field tomatoes year-round, but after you've had real local heirloom tomatoes it is just impossible to go back. Canned tomatoes make a more acceptable substitute for many types of dishes, including pasta sauces. We usually buy canned whole tomatoes as opposed to the chopped-up or pureed ones. In the wintertime, we occasionally get canned or frozen heirloom tomatoes in our CSA share, which is even better.

This dish is one of those easy weeknight dinners that takes under half an hour, start to finish, and we tend to make it as a fallback meal when we don't have a lot of time or energy. Frankly it takes about the same amount of time to do an easy pasta as it does to order a pizza...

Tuesday: Minimalist mustard pasta

Whole wheat pasta with mustard greens and chevre.

This is one of those recipes where you try to just take the edge off of red mustard greens without losing their wonderful bite: half the slivered greens were tossed in to boil for a couple seconds with the pasta just before it was drained, and half were added raw along with the goat cheese when the dish was assembled.