Having held forth at some length recently on how I don't believe it's ever too hot to eat soup -- or, really, any other hot dishes -- I will take this opportunity to freely admit that there are definitely times when it's too hot to make soup. Or pasta sauce. Or fried chicken. Or anything involving proximity to a stove or oven for longer than four minutes.
For example, on July evenings when it's roughly 94 degrees and six zillion percent humidity out, and I've had to slog home from work carrying a fullish bag of groceries on top of the rest of my normal equipage, and then had to drag my trash and recycling out to the curb, and then had to spend six minutes in my tiny, dark colored car moving it from one side of the street to the other for street cleaning.
And yet, having sweated off half my body weight, I want something substantial. So I turn to recipes like this one -- the Spaghetti Limone Parmeggiano from My Father's Daughter. It is a nice stick-to-your-ribs meal with a refreshing, bright, citrusy taste. And it basically requires you to do two things:
1. Combine the zest and juice of one lemon (for four people) with a cup and a half of fresh grated Parmesan, a pinch of salt, and 2 and a half tablespoons of olive oil until it forms a wet paste.
2. Cook pasta (3/4 pound for four). Add a couple of tablespoons to the cooking water to the lemon mixture, drain the pasta, and toss it with the lemon mixture.
Add black pepper and more Parmesan cheese on top to serve, if you like. I first started thinking about pastas with lemon when I was in Naples last spring, and bought some lemon infused linguine from the Limone Fabbrica. I thought "this sounds good," and then once the samples of limoncello and crema di melone had worn off, I thought "what am I going to do with this?"
And now I'm weirdly addicted to the combination, and wonder why it took so long for me to figure out that combining one of my favorite flavors with one of my favorite foods could only be a good thing. This Baked Lemon Pasta from the Pioneer Woman has become a favorite, but for nights when it's absolutely too hot to even go through that extra step of turning the oven to the "on" position, I just can't beat the fresh, simple elegance of this recipe.
5 comments:
I have been making a version of that for years. Must use Angel Hair, anything meaty will overwhelm the delicate sauce. And cooks longer, which is part of the point.
I'm totally going to try that out. Who knew Gwyneth could be useful in any way to us mere commoners? I'm beginning to like her, which 2009 freckledk would never, ever believe.
Hey -- stumbled across your blog via DCBlogs and have been following along ever since.
I've been salivating over the photos from this recipe. We've decided to attempt to replicate it -- sans baking, and using only the sort of faux-parmesan that comes in a green shaky-can -- here on our tiny little base in southwest Afghanistan, using only ingredient stolen from the wretched chow hall.
Thanks for the inspiration and keep up the good work.
Take care,
--Dakota
(http://theafghanplan.blogspot.com)
Yum.
My 'word verification' is chickess. I don't know why I think that's funny, but I do.
rob: Angel Hair is my go-to for any kind of "long noodle" pasta, and it's ideally suited for this preparation.
fk: yeah, Gwynnie has some good ideas... and some juice fasts that give me allergic reactions and make me die. None of us are perfect, I guess.
Dakota: Glad you wandered in -- your comment made my day. Yes, the baking is absolutely optional, even for the Pioneer Woman version with the sour cream. In that case, it's going to make the same sort of difference as baking does with mac & cheese -- it's still good, it just doesn't have that extra crunch factor going on.
Anon: I'm going to pretend Chickess is my new title. I'll be like Countess LuAnn on Housewives, only my title will be even more meaningless. And I'll look less like a dude.
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