Weekly Recipes: Lemon Pea Shoot Pasta and Vegetable Fried Rice

My apologies for the delay in recipe posts this week! It’s a hectic time at the Homestead. I’ve been photographing a lot of our meals, and hope to catch-up with writing recipe posts this weekend (which should make it easier to publish during the week). 🙂 Now–let’s get on with it!

This pasta is one of Chloe’s favorite meals. It rings true to the flavors of an alfredo without being quite so heavy (though it’s still not super good for you). It’s also a flexible base for a lot of different vegetables, making it versatile and seasonal. This week I used pea shoots that I ordered from Market Wagon, but you’ll see plenty of other ideas listed below since that isn’t a necessarily common ingredient.

Lemon Pea Shoot Pasta
Yield: 6 servings

1/2 C extra virgin olive oil
1/4 C red onion, finely diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
the zest and juice of 1 large Meyer lemon, about 2 T zest and 3 T juice
1 T honey
dash red pepper flakes
1/2 t sea salt (or more to taste)
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper (or more to taste)
1 to 1 1/2 C heavy cream
4 ounces fresh pea shoots
3/4 C freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1 pound spaghetti, linguini, or fettucini noodles

No pea shoots? Try-
stirring in some frozen petite peas just until thawed
topping the finished pasta with roasted asparagus or broccoli
topping with sauteed zucchini and summer squash
sauteeing a medley of veggies with the lemon zest, removing, and topping
stirring in some spinach in the same step indicated for pea shoots
eating plain

Instructions:
Put a large pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta. Meanwhile, in a large skillet heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the red onion and saute for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid browning, until soft. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest. Stir for 30 seconds until fragrant, then add the honey and stir for another 15 or so seconds. Add the heavy cream, sea salt, and black pepper. While the heavy cream comes up to a simmer, check the water that it is boiling. If it’s rapidly boiling, add the spaghetti noodles and cook for 6 minutes (usually 1 to 2 minutes less than the package directions state because we’re also going to add them to the skillet later and they’ll keep cooking in the cream). Stir the heavy cream mixture and let it simmer to thicken while the pasta is cooking.

Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 – 1 C of the cooking water. Squeeze half of the lemon over the drained pasta, tossing it around to coat. Your heavy cream should have reduced by about a third at this point. Add the drained lemon pasta, the pea shoots, the juice of the other half of the lemon, a little more sea salt and black pepper (you want to be able to see pepper flakes), and the parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Toss everything together with tongs and cook 1-2 minutes. Add a little of the cooking liquid to keep the mixture thin enough to be a sauce as needed (to your preference; the sauce will thicken even more as it stands, so it’s best to err on the side of a smidge too runny for your liking at first, unless you’re serving immediately).

Vegetable Fried Rice
Yield: 6 servings

2-3 T olive oil
1/2 C sweet onion, diced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 head of green cabbage, shredded
1 C petite frozen peas or fresh snow peas
4 eggs, scrambled
1 T sesame oil
1/2 t ground ginger
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/2 C soy sauce (recommend Tamari low sodium)
1 1/2 C cooked basmati rice

Optional Additions-
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Green onions
Bok Choy
Sprouts
Anything else you think sounds yummy!

Instructions:
Cook the rice in boiling salted water for 20-23 minutes, until done. Remove the rice to a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and cool in the fridge. This is best done a day ahead, but, in a pinch, you can do this step first, then stick the rice in the freezer until ready to use in the recipe. This helps keep the rice from breaking down or forming globules as you fry it.

In a small nonstick skillet over medium heat, add 4 beaten eggs and a pinch of sea salt. Cook them, not disturbing as much as possible, as if you would to make an omelette (this is best accomplish by gently pushing the middle of the eggs away from the center and letting new eggs replace it). Once the eggs are cooked all the way through, you can use a knife or spatula to cut them into pieces. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a wok or wide skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and carrots, cooking and stirring until softened, about 2-3 minutes. Add the cabbage and, if using, fresh snow peas and stir 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the already cooked and “old” rice, toss around for a minute, then add the soy sauce and toss and stir to distribute it evenly. Add in the egg and, if using, the frozen peas. Put a lid on the pot to thaw the peas for 2 minutes. Serve.