Tag Archives: pasta

sunday fridge clean up: vegetable lasagna

for dinner on sunday evening i gathered all the vegetables remaining in the fridge and put them together into a vegetable lasagna. i found: 2 celery stalks, 3 carrots and one shallot in questionable state, about 100g baby peas, one tomato, half an onion, 150g mushrooms, one zucchini. slice, dice, cut all the vegetables, then sauté for a few minutes each, throwing them in the pan in the following order: onion & shallot > carrots > celery > peas > mushrooms > zucchini > tomato. some origano can go in there as well. add 500ml vegetable stock and let it simmer for another few minutes. add 2 cans (à 400 ml) crushed tomatoes, let it again simmer. finally add 100ml heavy cream and season with salt and black pepper. it is quite runny by now, but that’s ok. i don’t like the bechamél that goes usually into lasagna, so all the liquid needed for the pasta comes from the sauce. assemble the lasagna with about 250g lasagna sheets and lay 125g mozzarella slices on top. ( i also sprinkled a bit grated parmesan – another leftover – between three of the layers.)  bake at 175° for 25 minutes.

pasta with zucchini, thyme and lemon juice

after the pancake disaster this morning i was not in the mood for any further experiments. so we had one of our all time classics for dinner. it’s easy and very fast: cook the spaghetti. at the same time fry some grated parmesan cheese in olive oil, deglaze either with white wine or some of the water the pasta is cooking in. add zucchini and thyme, let it simmer for a few minutes (until the spaghetti are done). add another ladle of the – generously salted! – pasta water and the juice of half a lemon. strain the spaghetti and mix with the sauce. ready to eat – with more parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. for two and a half people we had 230g spaghetti, about 50g of parmesan and 3 small zucchini.

something similar, but with tomatoes, is described in detail here.