Linguine with Summer Vegetables

I love pasta. It’s easy to cook and you have to work really hard (or use guanciale) to make it taste bad. This particular one is new to me, contains at least two ingredients I used to refuse to touch and I want to shove it in my mouth all the time.

I’ve mentioned the knife skills class pretty frequently, and I feel like I learned a lot from it though since my retention is so awful I should really take it again, and I celebrated the purchase of a new chef’s knife with recreating the pasta that Chef Bob served to us with the fruits of our labor…with one small problem. He wouldn’t give me a recipe.

Now, he had no problem telling me everything that went in it, but as I know some of you are aware I function best with a specific set of instructions, ESPECIALLY with a new recipe. Not having portions or measurements of any kind broke my brain a little bit but I am totally pleased with the outcome, it tasted exactly like I wanted it to, and now I’m going to share it with you.

You will need: (note, these portions are for two people and a toddler, adjust as needed)
Linguine
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp butter (or margarine)
1 medium zucchini, quartered
1 red bell pepper, cut in 1/2" strips and sliced across into thirds
2 sticks celery, halved lengthwise and chopped
3 or more crimini mushrooms, halved and sliced
1/3 to 1/2c white wine
Basil and rosemary, fresh and chopped fine if you’ve got it (worth it if you ask me)
Salt and pepper to taste

First, if you ask me the mushrooms are more for texture than taste, so don’t feel like you can’t make this if you don’t like mushrooms. Second, I wish this sauce had a name. It’s sort of like a modified beurre blanc, I guess, but nowhere near as complicated. Third, even if you don’t like zucchini, try it. Seriously. It’s like summer in your mouth and if your weather sucks as bad as mine, you pretty much want summer any way you can get it.

Onward!

Put some generously salted water on to boil for your pasta. You don’t have to use linguine, Chef Bob used spaghetti. I just try to mix up my pastas every now and then and especially now since the next two weeks are chock-full of Italian food, sez my Bi-Monthly Menu of Doom. I prepped my veggies while waiting for the boil. I like it when nothing has to be peeled. Take a minute during chopping to heat 2 Tbsp oil and 2 tbsp butter over medium-high heat in a saute pan.

(your vegetables should look something like this. If they don’t, who cares, this isn’t a Tuesday night a Le Bernardin)

When your veggies are all chopped and your oil is hot, go ahead and chuck your peppers and zucchini in the pan with some salt – have I mentioned that I like kosher salt for cooking and sea salt for finishing? Kosher is coarse, comes in a big box, is dirt cheap and tastes better than table salt. The only thing I don’t use it in is baking. Anyway, give your zuke and your pepper3-4 minutes before adding in the celery. After 2-3 minutes, add your mushrooms. If your water is boiling, throw the pasta in, it takes in the neighborhood of 8-10 minutes for al dente, if I remember right.

Here’s where it comes down to personal taste. I didn’t measure my wine, I just poured from the bottle until the amount looked "right" to me. This may be trickier for you because you’ve never had the pasta, so I’m estimating 1/3 cup. This kind of sauce lightly coats the pasta, it doesn’t pool or saturate like a tomato or cover heavily like an alfredo, and since you’re cooking it there will be a bit of reduction in the volume. So as you cook, add a glug or two more of wine and/or oil as you see fit. For the curious, I used a bottle – magnum – of Sutter Home sauvignon blanc that has been sitting in the cabinet since around Christmas half-consumed. Sometimes it’s hard to be this gourmet.

Hopefully since I failed to tell you to do so you’ve been stirring your vegetables frequently. No browning should be occurring, just softening. It should also smell divine. In a perfect world your pasta will be done at the same time as your vegetables – if you’re unsure, try a piece of the zucchini, it should be somewhat firm but tender. Add the herbs, salt and pepper, and remaining tablespoon of butter, melt, stir, and combine with the drained linguine in a big bowl. Mix everything together and chow down.

I keep mentioning being behind on posts and I am, in fact, still behind in posts. I know I’ve sent photos to Flickr for at least three other meals and those are just the ones that have made it through processing. I’ll get around to those empanadas eventually!