Sprout & Pea

Recently, my friend Caitlin asked me if I would give her a lit­tle cook­ing les­son, and since there’s noth­ing that I love more than cook­ing with friends and watch­ing their eyes widen as ingre­di­ents fuse together, I jumped at the oppor­tu­nity. We had just received our lat­est CSA box and it was filled with sum­mer squash that I was itch­ing to cook with. I wanted to keep this meal sim­ple so after some search­ing, I decided on a Martha Stew­art recipe that I came across for roasted sum­mer veg­eta­bles and basil over pasta.
This was the per­fect meal to cook with Caitlin. When she arrived that night, I had all of the food laid out and after show­ing her a few quick tech­niques, I handed her the knife and a cut­ting board and let her take the lead. It was a lovely night, chat­ting and cook­ing and I hope that Caitlin learned a few new things, and more impor­tantly, gained a bit more con­fi­dence in the kitchen– a place that in my book, no one should fear. I love this dish because all it requires is toss­ing some veg­gies in a pan with olive oil, salt and pep­per and roast­ing them for 30 min­utes. When they’re done, you mix them in with the pasta along with a lit­tle more olive oil and voilà, din­ner is served! It is a per­fect exam­ple of sim­ple ingre­di­ents merg­ing into beau­ti­ful fla­vors. I adapted Martha’s recipe by sub­sti­tut­ing olive oil for but­ter and shal­lots for red onions, but other than that, the recipe is as follows…

sum­mer squash (about 2 pounds), halved length­wise if large, sliced cross­wise 1 inch thick
2 pints grape or cherry toma­toes
2 red onions, halved length­wise and sliced 1/​2 inch thick (I used shal­lots)
4 gar­lic cloves, crushed
1/​4 cup olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pep­per
1 box of Quinoa lin­guine or pasta of your choice
2 table­spoons unsalted but­ter (I used olive oil)
1/​2 cup finely grated parme­san cheese, plus more for serv­ing
1 cup firmly packed torn fresh basil leaves

Pre­heat oven to 450 degrees. Divide squash, toma­toes, onions, and gar­lic between two large rimmed bak­ing sheets. Driz­zle with oil, and sea­son with salt and pep­per; toss to coat and then spread evenly. Roast (with­out toss­ing) until ten­der and start­ing to brown, 30 to 40 min­utes.
Mean­while, bring a large pot of water to a boil; add a gen­er­ous amount of salt. Cook pasta until al dente accord­ing to pack­age instruc­tions. Drain, and return to pot.
Add roasted veg­eta­bles, but­ter, parme­san, and basil to pot; sea­son with salt and pep­per, and toss gen­tly with pasta to com­bine. Reheat over medium-​​low if nec­es­sary before serving.