From the lack of updates it probably looks like I haven’t been cooking much. While I have been cooking, although less frequently than I wish, it’s really just been not having the time to post.

Today, I finally got around to uploading my photos and discovered a bunch of shots from an amazing meal I made a few weeks back: fresh pasta with farmers’ market peas and spring onions. I know I jotted down the recipe on the back of an envelope or something that has since disappeared (shocking!), but the truth is that for something this fresh and delicious you don’t really need a recipe.

In fact, I’m not even sure what the highlight of the dish is: the fresh homemade pasta or the glorious peas and onions straight from local farms. But the best part of this weeknight meal is that it came together in less than hour!

I started with the homemade pasta by whipping up the dough and letting it rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes. I then rolled it into thin pieces using a pasta machine, but cut it by hand into wider pieces, which was a lot of fun.

While waiting for the pasta dough to rest, I prepped the other ingredients and began making the sauce: sauteed the chopped spring onions in equal parts butter and olive oil (be generous – this is the base of the pasta sauce!) until soft and caramelized, added minced garlic and cooked until fragrant, then removed the pan from the heat and stirred in about a cup of fresh shelled peas.

Next I cooked the pasta in batches of salted, boiling water and strained the noodles directly into the saute pan with the vegetables. Fresh pasta cooks really quickly – just two minutes. Finally, I stirred in ricotta cheese, fresh mint and basil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Save a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin out the consistency of the sauce if necessary.

And that’s it! Fresh, simple and incredibly delicious – quite possibly the best thing I’ve had all summer that didn’t contain chocolate!

Quick Omelette with Shrimp & Peas

Welcome to the first official installment of By the Book on Foodie Reflections! This is where I will prepare a recipe from a cookbook and write about it. Pretty simple, eh? There’s no official schedule to these posts but at least it’s a step in the right direction as I slowly work my way through the ever-growing piles of cookbooks taking over my apartment.

A few things to note: 1) Some of the cookbooks were given to me, others I purchased because I was interested in them; and 2) I’m a little commitment phobic so there’s no schedule or day of the week for these posts — yet. The point is to have fun and celebrate the work that so many amazing cooks put years of blood, sweat and tears into.

First up is The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook by one of the most bubbly food bloggers I’ve come across: Jaden Hair of the blog Steamy Kitchen. I was fortunate to receive a certificate for a copy of her book a few months ago, and was thrilled when it arrived in the mail last week.

I tore apart the package and immediately dove into the book looking for a recipe to try. The only problem was that I needed to pick just one to start with and there were SO many that jumped out at me. In the end I went with the Quick Omelette with Shrimp and Peas for two reasons: 1) it was quick to make – I mean the word is even in the title; and 2) I was freaking hungry!

Oh, this omelette did not disappoint. It was filling and satisfying, not mention a little salty but in a good way, and a little sweet from the peas. Plus I felt energized from all the protein but not weighed down at all, a good thing as this was lunch afterall.

Now, I just have to choose what to make next.

Here’s the recipe:

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Mint Pea Soup with Greek Yogurt

Peas. Mint. Yogurt.

I couldn’t get those three ingredients out of my head all weekend. I didn’t know how they got in there to begin with, all I knew was that I wanted – no NEEDED – to make something with them

Sure, I could have prepared some interesting pesto-type sauce or a dip, but I wanted something a bit simpler that wouldn’t require extra ingredients to enjoy my concoction. The result: Mint Pea Soup with Greek Yogurt.

Essentially a simple puree of peas (either fresh or frozen work; I used a combination of both because that’s what I had) with mint and aromatics (yellow onion, garlic and ginger), this was a clean and refreshing soup finished nicely with a dollop of tangy Greek yogurt.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s bright green? No? Sorry about that, it should have been the first thing I said because I think the color makes the soup kind of fun.

Here’s the recipe:

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Wild Mushroom & Sweet Pea Pasta

Memorial Day means fresh ingredients. Finally. After a long winter and slow-moving spring, it’s such a joy to be able to walk to the farmer’s market and fill my canvas bag with locally grown ingredients. Somehow food just seems to taste better that way.

To clarify, I’m not arguing that produce from the grocery store isn’t fresh, I’m just saying there’s something special about buying your produce from a the person who picked it.

Morel and oyster mushrooms

In this instance I’m referring to the wild mushrooms I bought at the Green City Market, two morels and a few bunches of oysters to be exact. And while I love buying local, it can sometimes come with a hefty price tag, as in $5 for two morels.

Such valuable loot deserves to be showcased and celebrated, not overpowered by strong ingredients. And what better way to showcase my prized morels than to pair them with fresh pasta, one of my all-time favorite foods and a true labor of love (here’s the video tutorial and recipe for fresh pasta).

In this instance I made a very light sauce by sauteing shallots, garlic and sliced wild mushrooms (note: don’t mince the mushrooms; you’ll want to leave some texture intact) in butter. I then added frozen sweet peas (yes, I said frozen and I’m fine with that) for a bit of sweetness and relied on lemon zest, lemon juice and fresh parsley to balance out the flavors.

Wow, was it good! The smell alone was enough to have me salivating, but the taste was out of this world. The delicate pasta, subtle lemon-butter sauce, and the sweetness of the shallots and peas synchronistically combined to enhance the earthiness of the mushrooms, the star ingredient.

And best of all it took less than ten minutes to make the sauce and cook the pasta. Talk about a winner in all categories!

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Herby Pea Pasta

I love pasta. Absolutely, positively love it. It’s incredibly versatile with thousands of sauces, vegetables, proteins, spices and herbs available to combine with it, not to mention all the forms pasta comes in – fun shapes, flavors, even whole grain is becoming easy to find. But the thing I think I love most about pasta is how simple it is to put together a flavor-packed meal in less than 15 minutes.

Take this dish, herby pea pasta. It came together in a snap. I minced a shallot, sweated it in a bit of olive oil, added semi-thawed shrimp, then a little white wine, frozen peas straight from the freezer, the cooked pasta, chopped fresh herbs, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Half the products were either shelf-stable or frozen, and the herbs (in this case chives, tarragon and basil), were leftovers.

The whole dish was completed in the amount of time it took to boil water and cook the pasta. Because there wasn’t a lot of prep work, I was able to chop and cook the other ingredients while the pasta boiled.

Here’s the recipe for today’s dish, but note that you can use pretty much any type of herb you have available.

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