Thursday, March 1, 2012

Lemon Penne

Per the request of Jessica's friend Veronica and after a prolonged absence (apologies) here is a recipe that Jessica craves.  Its light, contains easily sourceable ingredients but its still very filling because of the pasta and cheese.  All you do is boil the pasta, make the vinaigrette, prep the other ingredients and combine them in a pan.

Ingredients
Penne
Arugula
Grape Tomatoes
Parm
Mozzarella
2-3 Lemons (Depending on how much lemon flavor you like)
Olive oil
Sugar
Dijon Mustard
Bread
Garlic

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2.  Get your water boiling. Drop the box of penne into boiling, well salted(VERY IMPORTANT!) water. Cook until al dente, consistently stirring. About 11 minutes.
3.  Grate 1- 2 cups of Parm, depending on how cheesy you like your pasta.
4.  Dice 1 large ball of mozzarella into bite sized pieces.
5.  Season 2-3 cups of arugula with salt and pepper.
6. Put a pint of grape tomatoes in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast them in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Pull them out right before they burst.
7.  Cut the bread and pop it in the oven.  When its done rub it with a clove of garlic.
8.  For the vinaigrette juice 2-3 lemons into a bowl.  Add 1 teaspoon of sugar.  A tablespoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.  (sometimes I add a little bit of minced shallot but not always) Slowly whisk in 3/4c of olive oil.  We like an acidic vinaigrette in our house, if you like a more basic version just add more oil to taste.
9.  Drain the pasta.
10.  Add about half the lemon vinaigrette to the pan and then the pasta and arugula.  Stir over low heat, adding more sauce over the top to taste. 
11.  Add the parm, then the mozzarella and finally the grape tomatoes (be careful not to break tomatoes for presentation purposes)
12.  Spoon it all into a bowl, grab your bread, grate a little parm and additional black pepper over the top and enjoy.



Once you get this recipe down pat you can make it in twenty minutes or less.  Its one of the few things I make that Jessica actually likes better than I do.  I'm always thinking of ways to tweak the recipe and her suggestion is "Don't do it, just make the lemon pasta!".  And so I do.  And now you can too:-)

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