Creamy Lemon Pasta

A few nights ago, I cooked my first meal from my new favorite cookbook. This cookbook is called Simple Suppers, and it has already been incredibly helpful in planning all our meals. In fact, if I had to cut my (ridiculously large) recipe book collection down to only one book, this would be the one.

The recipe I made was called Creamy Lemon Pasta. Overall, it was delicious, and I will definitely make it again. I made a few modifications to the original recipe, which I've noted below. (Also, I completely forgot to take any pictures of anything along the way, but I'm gonna try to get better about that!)

Creamy Lemon Pasta:

Ingredients:

1 lemon

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 pound fresh fettuccine or dried spaghettini

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Bring a large covered pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, grate the lemon peel (about 2 teaspoons of zest) and squeeze the lemon (about 3 tablespoons of juice).

In a small skillet or saucepan on low heat, melt the butter. Stir in the cream and heat gently. Stir in the lemon juice and zest. Turn off the heat.

When the water boils, cook the pasta until al dente. Set aside a cup of the hot pasta-cooking water and drain the pasta.

Place the hot drained pasta in a large serving bowl, add the lemon cream sauce, and toss. Add some or all of the reserved hot water if more liquid is needed. Toss in the grated Parmesan. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Modifications: I made a few changes to the recipe, because 3 of the 6 ingredients were a little too high in fat for my tastes. I substituted 3 tbs of olive oil for the butter, and 1 cup half and half for the heavy cream. This did cause the final product to taste a bit bland, so I ended up adding garlic and basil to the final product, which gave it a great taste and a bit of color. Also, we added shrimp (which we had sauteed in olive oil with garlic and lemon juice) and it made a great addition.

Apparently, I do not know what "heat gently" means, and this recipe almost ended up on an entirely different blog when the olive oil and half and half started to take on a very strange texture when I heated it too quickly. However, I just dropped the heat down, and I was able to salvage it.

We paired this with steamed broccoli and fresh rosemary olive oil bread. Overall, I would definitely make this again. In fact, I would actually add a bit more lemony goodness the next time I make it (either a bit more juice, or some additional dried lemon zest) because the lemon taste was not quite as pronounced as I would like.

Farmer's Market Extravaganza

About 2 years ago, I discovered the wonder that is the State Farmer's Market in Raleigh. Visiting the market has become a summer tradition with my coworkers over our lunch breaks. It makes a great midday break, and the produce available is amazing. The quality is far and away better than even the best grocery stores, and the prices are typically cheaper. Plus, I just like knowing that my money is going directly to the farmer, and not to grocery stores and distributors.

Although the market remains open year round, the available produce is definitely not quite as stellar during winter and the early spring months. Late spring is always exciting, when there is suddenly a huge selection of beautiful looking produce. Check out what I got when I visited before my trip last week:

I've spent some time researching the best way to store produce. Perhaps this is common knowledge, but I always just assumed that all fruits and vegetables should be kept in the refrigerator. Apparently, this is completely untrue. This page has a really helpful table to help you know where to store everything. Here are some of the surprises:

Do not refrigerate:

Apples (if storing for less than 7 days)

Tomatoes

Basil

Cucumbers

Eggplant

Mangoes

Oranges

Peppers

Watermelon

You should definitely check out the table with that article - it's extremely helpful!

I spent time tonight planning recipes and a shopping list for the week. I'll be sure to post some recipes soon!

Starting Over: Meatless

After weeks (months? years?) of blog envy, I have finally decided to start my own food blog. I know there are lots and lots of food blogs out there, so I don't really expect mine to be that exciting. However, even if I have 0 followers, I think a blog will help me keep track of my new way of eating.

In case the blog title didn't give it away, my (new!) husband and I have recently decided to start cooking exclusively vegetarian food. This was a conscious decision, but one that we have been headed towards for years. I realized that even though I used to love cooking, in recent years, I have not enjoyed it anymore. I finally figured out that this was because I did not enjoy preparing meat, so I would cheat my way through any recipe that required meat and used pre-cooked meat instead. This did not make for very delicious food.

So, I'm starting this blog to share the new recipes we're trying and how they turn out. I might even occasionally share knowledge to help with the vegetarian lifestyle.

Here goes!