Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Spring Pasta with Grapes, Ricotta, Parsley and Grilled Bread

I mean.... I don't even know what to say if I didn't have you at "grapes, ricotta, parsley and grilled bread."  Swoon.  (This recipe is kind of an entree-scale flavor rip-off of this one, btw.)



Ingredients:
1 bunch asparagus (I used purple!)
Sugar snap peas
Thin spinach pasta
1 bunch red grapes, halved
1.5 cups ricotta
1/2 a bunch of parsley leaves, roughly chopped
Lemon olive oil
Crusty bread cut into crouton-sized chunks
Salt
Lemon juice

In a large frying pan, heat olive oil (lemon flavored if possible) on high heat.  Chop snowpeas in half and chop asparagus spears into small bite-sized pieces.  Toss those and some salt into the hot oil, cover, and cook on high heat until very tender, shaking the entire pan occasionally to prevent burning.

Meantime, get your pasta water boiling, and whenever it boils, make your pasta.  Preheat oven to 225 so that whatever gets done first can go into a big serving bowl to stay warm.  When pasta is done, drain, toss with a bit more olive oil to prevent sticking, and put in bowl in oven.

Add veggies to bowl when they are done.  Use frying pan (without rinsing), with a little additional oil and salt if needed, to grill chunks of bread - not as hard as for croutons, but somewhere in the middle! Set bread aside to top each bowl of pasta.

Finally, use same pan, with more oil if needed, to grill grape halves and parsley.  The grapes should give off juice and become slightly translucent.  Toss them into pasta bowl before they lose shape.

Finish by tossing in ricotta, salt and lemon juice to taste, and top each bowl with bread chunks.


2 comments:

  1. Wow, this sounds wonderful, and so easy-peasy! So my question is, how do you stay so mini when you cook so much amazing food? Especially before depos. :)
    (Hint: I live on a perfect street)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, thank you Ms. Parfet!!!

    ReplyDelete