BlissFullU

After STRAWBERRIES (see my previous post), the thing I’m most excited to get in our local Farmers Market in the spring is ASPARAGUS! It is coming in now, and I’m so excited. Mostly, I just eat it roasted as a side dish. However, tonight I included it in our entree.

I found a recipe in Bon Appétit for a vegetarian carbonara pasta dish with no meat but instead substituted asparagus. It didn’t use any cream, although it did use cheese and 3 egg yolks, along with my beloved Pensey Spanish Smoked Paprika that I wrote about previously (although the original recipe did not specify Pensey but that was one of the recipes I was yearning to resupply my Smoked Paprika so I could make it).

The recipe I used is here: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/vegetarian-carbonara

I have to admit that I changed it significantly, which is why I never say I’ve used anyone’s recipe. The original recipe uses 12 ounces of pasta, which drives me crazy because my organic whole wheat spaghetti comes in 16 ounces boxes, so what am I supposed to do with the other 4 ounces? So I doubled the garlic (just because we love garlic) and smoked paprika, added an entire bunch of green onions, doubled the asparagus, and added more cheese. It was good but it doesn’t look as attractive as the picture from the original recipe, nor does it have as many vegetables as I would prefer for a dish of this size. My son loved really like it, however, so maybe that is what matters, especially under these times of pressure.

This recipe uses 3 egg yolks in the sauce, so I had 3 egg whites left over. To use those up, I made a dozen chocolate meringue shells to hold our desert of strawberries mixed with a chocolate balsamic that I got from Peak Oil when bought my other things last weekend (see here if interested).

That was a great combination of slightly crunchy and soft, sweet and tangy, chocolate and strawberry. So another example of the wonderful things we can make if we are buying locally.

This is another example of a meal of almost all local, mostly Farmers Market, mostly heathy, all vegetarian, and all seasonal food.

Enjoy!