Udon noodles with vegetables and peanut sauce

A tragic tale with a happy ending: ib loves peanut sauce, but always assumed it was a chore to make.  dsd has made peanut sauce before, but never with ib.  Until…one day she did!  (Plus: Exciting ingredients!  Leftover vegetables used up!  Does it get any better?)

Pasta with cheese+pepper, pea salad

I’m a sucker for minimalist recipes (and Mark Bittman’s Minimalist column), and I couldn’t pass up a recipe that emphasized good, al dente pasta.  So, I loaded up on some 100% durum wheat semolina spaghetti, and prepared to make Smitten Kitchen’s version of Mario Batali’s spaghetti with cheese and black pepper recipe.  dsd suggested I also make a salad, and I was delighted—I love side salads.  I picked a pea salad with radishes, to use up some greenmarket radishes.

Ad-lib pasta with veggies & ricotta

With USQ Farmer’s Market ricotta in hand, we threw together an addictingly good and simple pasta dinner.

Fried Rice

Turns out we had lots of green vegetables to use up…that all go wonderfully in fried rice.  AND, this was the first round of fried rice where my cast iron wok worked as intended — no sticking eggs or veggies or rice and no need for tons of oil or butter — Success!

Pasta in Purple Sauce

To use up the veggies we had, we threw together pasta with white sauce and CSA scallions, violet islander peppers, and beet greens as well as garlic and peas to round it out.  After sauteing the peppers separately, we started the butter, scallions, and garlic to make the roux.  The beet greens, peas, and cooked peppers were added to the sauce and it was finished with some white pepper, salt, and CSA summer savory.

Leftover lettuce

We found ib‘s new favorite recipe!