It’s Pasta Primavera Time!

It has been awhile, but it’s finally time for my favorite spring and summer dish: pasta with fresh vegetables. Quite simple and yet oh so satisfying (and quite easy to make with local ingredients!).

This dish changes throughout the season, but the beginning of multiple fresh veggies in my kitchen meant it was time to kick off the pasta primavera season.

Wonderfully enough, I was also able to utilize a graduation present that reduced the amount of time spent making the whole wheat pasta — a KitchenAid! I guess I should graduate more often! (Thanks, parents!)

To get started with your own pasta primavera, just decide what veggies you want to include and begin cooking them in a large pan from the slowest-cooking to fastest-cooking veggie.

For this primavera, we included (in order of adding to the pan):

olive oil (the only non-local ingredient)
4 cloves garlic (is anything worth cooking that doesn’t include garlic?)
3 green onions
1 bunch broccoli
1/2 lb. oyster mushrooms
4 vine ripened tomatoes
available herbs
grated cheese

It’s really very easy — start by sauteing the garlic in the olive oil until it becomes aromatic.

Add the onions and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add the broccoli and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until they’ve all started to turn a darker color of green (cook a little longer if you want them less crispy).

Add the mushrooms and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until they’ve started to brown.

I then add the tomatoes and herbs at the same time. I add the tomatoes last because I like them warm, but not mushy. If you like softer tomatoes, you might want to add them at an earlier time. Cook for a final 4-6 minutes or until everything is blended to your liking. Then mix with pasta.

This amount of “sauce/topping/whatever you want to call it” combined with the fresh pasta resulted in about 4 servings.

Also, as far as herbs go, try to be creative! I added some of the more Italian-like herbs that I have growing including: thyme, basil, oregano, a bay leaf, and a touch of rosemary. We also had garlic and herb cheese (my favorite!!) from the farmers’ market to top it off.