With the warmer months of Spring and Summer, I try to take full advantage of nature's bounty and cook with a variety of vegetables. The more vegetables I can cram into a dish the better. While I was visiting my eye doctor, I flipped through the June 2009 issue of Ladies' Home Journal. It's not usually a magazine I read but the pickings were slim so I chose that. In their Food section, they had some superb recipes in an article called "Perfect Summer Pasta". Pasta paired with a variety of vegetables and I went out and bought a copy of the magazine before it was taken off the newsstands (because I'm a good doobie and would not steal from the doctor's waiting room).
I recently made the Herbed Vegetable and Artichoke Pasta recipe with several modifications. Here is my version. Enjoy!
Ingredients
2 cups of Rotelle pasta
handful of chopped fresh green beans
fresh or canned baby corn halved
grape tomatoes halved
1/4 of a yellow bell pepper sliced and chopped
small can of marinated artichokes
1 small can of olive-oil packed tuna
chopped parsley
drizzles of olive oil to taste
splashes of vinegar to taste
salt and pepper to taste
This makes 3-4 servings.
Boil water and cook pasta for the recommended amount of time.
Prepare all the vegetables and mix them in a bowl with the artichokes, tuna and parsley. Set aside.
Once pasta is cooked, add to a strainer and run it under some cold water to cool off the pasta and stop the cooking process.
Mix the pasta in with the other ingredients. Season with salt and pepper and add equal parts olive oil and vinger (red wine works well here).
Serve with grated parmesan cheese over the top.
Possible variations:
Replace tuna with grilled chicken
Replace artichokes with marinated mushrooms
Go Vegan by using vegan friendly pasta and replacing tuna for baked tofu
Par-boil the green beans and cool prior to prep
Add your favorite vinagerette instead of just oil and vinegar
Replace vinegar with lime or lemon juice
Replace parmesan cheese with fresh mozarella chunks
Replace Rotelle with Farfalle (bow-tie) pasta
1 comment:
Delicious! This dish reminds me a lot of one my dad always does. Tuna is exchanged for smoked salmon and green beans for asparagus. I think he even adds small chunks of broccoli. Rotelle is an interesting name I've never heard before, here they are called Fusilli. I wonder what the original name is?
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