In my first two podcast episodes, I discussed (at varying lengths) my pasta-making franchise. And by “franchise,” what I mean is, “the two times I’ve made pasta recently.” Tonight’s meal featured the second such attempt at making rigatoni, which I froze after I’d made a full batch, waiting for the perfect day to use it. Today was just that day!
Even though there’s still plenty of snow on the ground, I can’t help but dream of spring, which I feel sure is right around the corner. This aglio e olio with vegetables is a nod to primavera – the season and the recipe – with lots of spring-like veggies, such as yellow squash and bright yellow cherry tomatoes.
As the pasta water heated up to a boil (which took about 15 minutes), I heated up a skillet and sautéed a diced onion in olive oil, adding sliced yellow squash a few minutes into the process. Just before the water was rolling nicely, I added a jar of sliced mushrooms to the pan as well and topped the blend with some garlic powder, parsley, salt, and pepper. Then I dumped the bag of frozen pasta into the water and added the cherry tomatoes to the skillet (they never need very much time to heat through).
Once the rigatoni was ready, I drained the pot and added a colander’s worth to the skillet as well, tossing everything together to mix and adding a splash more olive oil for texture. We served dinner up straight from the skillet, not even bothering to transfer everything to a prettier serving dish; who needed that? By the time the meal was on our plates, it was pretty enough! And paired with a fresh green salad, this recipe really hit the spot.
In Recessionista fashion, LeeLee and I both jumped for joy at the realization that we have plenty left for lunch tomorrow! And I’m pretty excited, too, that a lack of rigatoni in the freezer means that I should pull the pasta extruder out for another go-round. This weekend!
:)