Venerating
Vegetables - Take 2
PASTA
Welcome back to For The Culinarily Challenged's series
on Luscious Leftovers! For those of you just joining us, I'm teaching the world
how to repurpose leftovers, a great way to save money and prevent food waste. I
started with fruit, and am now doing leftover veg. After that I'll be tackling
leftover fish, meats, bread and other starches.
Pasta is a great vessel
for re-purposing leftovers, especially vegetables.
Let me show you.
Not Quite Perished Veg Pasta
Difficulty
Level: Easy
Total
Prep and Cook Time:
Sauté method - 30
minutes
Roasting method - 1
hour - Why take the extra time?
Because roasting makes the garlic soft and sweet, and concentrates the flavors
of the vegetables a bit more than the first method. It also happens to be the
type of thing you can prep, shove in the oven and walk away from until the last
15 or 20 minutes when you need to boil the pasta.
Serves 2 to 4
There
are many different types of pasta dishes. Some consist of cooked pasta topped
with a hearty tomato, vegetable, or meat based sauce. Some have a cream based
sauce. And others consist of a few ingredients that are chopped up and sautéed
or roasted before being mixed with a few extra ingredients and tossed with
fresh pasta.
This
dish falls into the third category.
It
doesn't matter if your bell peppers are a little wrinkly, your tomatoes a
little too soft, or your eggplant
lackluster. Pasta is very forgiving.
To
those who are calorie and/or cholesterol conscious, you'll be happy to know
that there's almost no fat in this dish.
Here's
How You Do It
Ingredients
3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
At Least 2 Cups of Leftover
Vegetables - Coarsely Chopped - For
this dish, I like to avoid starchy veg like cooked carrots, sweet potatoes, and
squash. Stick to stuff like tomatoes, eggplant, onions, bell peppers of any
colour, mushrooms, celery, zucchini, and broccoli. The dishes shown in the
picture were made with bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, and a
little onion.
GARLIC
Sauté Method - 2
cloves (pieces) of peeled garlic, finely chopped as the flavor will be more
intense
Roasting Method - 1 Whole, Unpeeled Head, as roasting garlic sweetens and removes
its harshness
1 Teaspoon of Basil or
Oregano - OR - If you're feeling REALLY lazy - 1 Teaspoon of Pesto
Salt and Pepper - To Taste
Hot Pepper Flakes -
Optional - To Taste
1/4 Cup of the Water Used
to Cook the Pasta - The
starch in the water will allow the sauce to adhere to the pasta
1/2 Cup of Tomatoey Liquid
- This can be some thick
vegetable cocktail like V8, tomato juice, tomato paste mixed with some water
(ratio of water to paste should be at least 4 to 1 or until the mixture has
reached a pourable consistency), some crushed tomatoes right out of the can, or
some passata. This will tie the sauce together.
1/4 Cup of Red Wine or
Balsamic Vinegar - This
adds a nice richness. Any leftover
red wine will do if you don't have the balsamic.
1 Cup of Hot Water - The water is only necessary for the sauté method, as it speeds up the cook time of
the vegetables a bit
1 Box (454 g) of Long Pasta
i.e. Spaghetti, Spaghettini, Linguini, Angel Hair (Capellini), or Fettuccini -
Prepped according to package directions - Remember that the thinnest variety, like angel hair, will
cook the quickest.
TOPPING - Optional
Grated Cheese of any kind -
This doesn't have to be
parmesan. If you have a piece of cheese like cheddar or swiss or some fancy
remnant of a cheese platter that's going a little hard (though I'd avoid using
blue cheese as the flavor is kinda strong), grate it up and serve it with the
pasta. No one - except maybe a cheese snob - will know the difference.
Equipment
1 Knife and Cutting Board
1 Large Pot
1 Strainer
1 Frying Pan
1 Pair of Tongs
1 Wooden Spoon
Measuring Cups and Spoons
1 Regular Bowl - for the pasta water
1 Wooden Spoon
1 Frying Pan for the Sauté
Method
- OR -
1 Baking Pan for the Roasting
Method (the biggest one you have)
2 Small Sheets of Aluminum
Foil
1 Kitchen Timer
SAUTÉ METHOD
Make
sure your ingredients and equipment are all within easy reach, and this is
going to be quicker than you think.
Put
the pasta water on to boil, and your frying pan on a nearby burner on medium
high heat.
Dump
the Olive Oil in the pan.
Check
the oil by throwing in a piece of a vegetable from your pile of chopped up
ones. If it sizzles a bit within a few seconds of contact, the oil is hot
enough.
Add
the rest of your vegetables, and stir them around with a wooden spoon to get
them evenly coated with oil and soften 'em up a little. Don't worry if the
vegetables don't quite fit in the pan. They'll shrink as they cook.
Add
salt, pepper, hot pepper flakes if using, and either basil, oregano, or pesto
and stir to incorporate.
Cook for about
10 minutes and then add the tomatoey liquid, wine or balsamic, and water and
let it bubble away in the pan uncovered until the vegetables are tender. The
best way to figure this out is to scoop out a piece of what was the toughest
raw vegetable i.e. broccoli, eggplant, and
give it a taste.
If it's soft
enough for you, add the finely chopped garlic, and stir it around for a minute
to incorporate.
Taste and adjust
for salt and pepper, and add the cooking liquid from the pasta.
Give it another
quick stir, toss with the freshly cooked pasta and serve!
ROASTING METHOD
Preheat
the oven to 375 oF.
Using
a sharp knife, cut the very top off the head of garlic, just exposing the
insides. Put it in the 2 sheets of foil, and pour 1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
over it, and season it with a pinch of salt.
Wrap
the garlic tightly in the foil.
Dump
the remaining Olive Oil in the baking pan and toss in the vegetables.
Add
the basil, oregano, or pesto, some salt and pepper, and the hot pepper flakes,
if using.
Mix
everything up with your hands so the vegetables are evenly coated, and pour the
balsamic vinegar or red wine over everything.
Nestle
the foil wrapped garlic among the vegetables in the pan and stick the whole
thing in the oven.
Set
a timer for 45 minutes.
After
the 30 minutes, in a large pot of salted water, start cooking your pasta.
When
the pasta water is cloudy and the pasta almost cooked, scoop some water out
into an ordinary bowl with a ladle.
Drain
your pasta and put it back in the pot.
When
the 45 minutes are up, take the pan out of the oven.
Using
tongs or oven mitts, take the foil wrapped garlic out of the pan and set it
aside to cool.
Dump
the tomatoey liquid and pasta water into the pan and stir it around with a
wooden spoon.
When
the foil is cool enough to handle, open it up. The garlic will have shrunk, and
be tender, sweet and delicious - see the image below - with none of the
harshness it had when it was raw.
Carefully squeeze the cloves out of the skin into
the pan - they should pop right out - and stir everything with a wooden spoon,
mashing the cloves a bit to make sure they're well incorporated into the
sauce.
Dump
pan's contents into the pot with the drained pasta, toss with tongs so
everything's nicely mixed up and serve!
Stay
tuned for next time when I'll be showing you a third and final way of
repurposing leftover vegetables before moving on to meats!
-Samantha R. Gold
Questions? Comments?
Requests?
Bring it on!
I can be reached at: for.the.culinarily.challenged@gmail.com
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unceremoniously deleted and dismissed.
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