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05/14/2020 12:01 AMYesterday, I drove to BJ’s and Stop & Shop.
I was out of tomatoes and bananas and wanted a rotisserie chicken. I still had toilet paper, but was down to two boxes of Kleenex and one roll of paper towels.
I got back home and made a big salad with peppers, romaine, toasted coconut, tomatoes, and Craisins, topped with chicken and my own salad dressing. It takes me a long time to finish my own salads, so in 20 minutes I feel satisfied.
These days I spend a lot of time on the phone and on Facebook with my daughter. We talk about how she and her husband are doing. He was furloughed three weeks ago, while she is working full-time at home, writing social studies curricula online for charter schools.
We also come up with ideas about cooking. Yesterday she made a beef stew in her Crock Pot with some frozen tri-tip beef, lots of vegetables, a white wine she’d not loved, some rice vinegar, and chicken stock, which she used because she was out of beef stock. The day before she made a pasta primavera, and I mentioned that I had not made that in a few years and couldn’t remember the recipe.
She rarely uses recipes, and so, since I had tons of veggies, I looked for the recipe on my computer files. I found one with a sauce that had some delicious ingredients. It also said Sirio Maccioni of New York City’s Le Cirque created pasta primavera. He died April 20, 2020 at nearly 90 years old.
I ended up making one without strictly following a recipe either, but I used one from a cookbook by Marie Simmons, one that calls for just a few ingredients, plus whatever veggies you have on hand. I sautéed whatever vegetables I had at that time, fresh or frozen, in extra-virgin olive oil, but treated them differently. Carrots and cauliflower took maybe 20 minutes; onions, garlic, sweet peppers, chopped green and yellow squash, sweet corn, and frozen peas take less time. I added the vegetables and sauce recipe to hot cooked pasta, topping with grape tomatoes (grape tomatoes need almost no cooking at all) and tossed it all together.
If the cookbook below is still available, this is one you might like to have on your shelf. If you can’t find it, you might want to check the Book Barn in Niantic, which plans to re-open on Wednesday, May 20. All visitors will be required to wear masks. All visitors will have to observe social distancing. But yes, it plans to be open, with times announced on its website at www.bookbarnniantic.com. It might have a copy or this cookbook, or something else you have to have.
Lee White of Old Lyme has been a food editor and restaurant reviewer for more than 25 years. You can email her at leeawhite@aol.com.
Easy Pasta Primavera
Adapted from Marie Simmons, 365 Ways to Cook Pasta, 1988.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients:
• 1 egg
• ⅓ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 16 ounces of your favorite pasta
• 1 tablespoon chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
• Vegetables of your choice, including cherry tomatoes
• salt
Fill a very large pot with water and bring to a boil and cook the pasta in heavily salted water.
In the meantime, in a large serving bowl, beat the egg, cream, and Parmesan cheese together.
Once the pasta is cooked al dente, according to the pasta package directions, drain the pasta and pour it into the egg, heavy cream, and cheese mixture. Toss to coat.
Add vegetables, cherry tomatoes, and parsley; toss and serve.