8:12 PM Pasta with Mushrooms and Lima Beans

Tonight was a new dish made of items I needed to use out of the fridge. My portions are for one and I didn't measure anything, so you'll need to adjust for how many you are feeding.

2 slices of red onion
2 mushrooms, sliced
handful of frozen Lima beans
one clove of garlic, chopped
tablespoon of pesto
1/2 teaspoon of tomato paste
olive oil
salt
pepper
Parmesan cheese
small handful of whole wheat spaghetti

Prepare spaghetti noodles as directed on the package. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in skillet. divide slices of onion into quarters and begin saute. Salt onions to sweat. Once onions are beginning to go clear, add sliced mushrooms. Stir and salt again to sweat. Add Lima beans and saute until mushrooms are carmelized and lima beans are cooked. Add garlic and stir. Cook for about 30 seconds and turn heat off of burner. Garlic will continue to cook, but won't burn.


Once pasta is cooked al dente, drain and place in skillet with saute. Stir until noodles are coated. If skillet has cooled down, bring back up to low until finished stirring noodles.

Transfer noodle and veggies to a plate and add pesto and tomato paste.

Stir until coated. Season with pepper and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.


This dish was extremely satisfying. It was a nice easy comfort meal. I accompanied the dish with Meridian Chardonnay and some green olives. The whole dish can be made Vegan with the omission of Parmesan and subbing a Vegan Pesto.

7:59 PM Pasta with sauteed zucchini and sundried tomatoes

Today was an especially lovely day for recipe blogging. I bookmarked A Lot! Tonight I decided to try out this Pasta with Zucchini and Chickpeas I saw on Cheap Healthy Good. The only problem was that I was missing a key ingredient-Chickpeas!

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. I always have chickpeas on hand. It's just that the chickpeas I keep on hand are dried and I don't have the kind of time needed to soak, and cook those chickpeas. I do buy the canned version often, but I don't always keep cans on hand. I generally will purchase what I need plus one extra can so I can save precious space in my cabinets. Apparently, I used up the last can I bought.

So in the absence of one key ingredient for a pasta dish, I did what I normally do, I subbed sundried tomatoes! Otherwise, the dish was prepared exactly as instructed in the recipe. Plus a dash of lemon. And I forgot to put the crushed peppers in while sauteing so I just left them out altogether.

The result was pretty good! It would probably have been better with the chickpeas and with grated Parmesean instead of the powdery kind. The kind I have on hand is real parmesean, but there's just something different about that grated consistency that makes a difference.



Tonight I'm having Meridian Chardonnay with my meal. Newmarket has had it on sale lately and I've taken a liking to it over Barefood Chardonnay.