Spring is finally here! This past weekend, in Montreal, we reached a high of 15 degrees! The sky was blue and the sun was so warm on our skin. It felt great to be outdoors. We are lucky enough to have a backyard to enjoy so we enjoyed the weather and even ate our lunch outside for the first time this year!
As the weather gets warmer, we crave to eat light and colourful meals, so to literally honour spring, our recipe of the week is Pasta Primavera, which means spring in Italian. In French, spring is called Le Printemps. It is a very easy dish to make and you don’t need many ingredients at all to prepare it. It is also a very budget friendly dish and you can use your favourite vegetables. Here is what you need to make my version of Pasta Primavera.
1 box of fusilli pasta
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 bunch of green onions, thinly sliced
12 cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
1 zucchini, thinly diced
12 or so halved mushrooms
1/2 bag of frozen peas
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of white wine
Parmesan cheese
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add your pasta of choice and follow the cooking instructions on the box. In a deep frying pan, add your 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Set your heat to medium/high. When the oil is warm enough, add your onion and minced garlic. Cook until translucent. Add the rest of your vegetables and stir occasionally, until softened. Add salt, black pepper, chilli flakes and dry basil. Add the wine and simmer on low heat to marry all the ingredients.
Once the pasta is cooked “al dente” drain it and add it to the vegetable mixture. Toss together until all the noodles are coated with the sauce. Sprinkle the pasta with a generous portion of Parmesan cheese.
We hope you will give this recipe a try. It is easy to make and you can make substitutions with your favourite vegetables. I have made this dish with spinach, broccoli, squash and kale and it is always delicious!
We encourage you to share this recipe with someone you love today and plan a virtual lunch date! Look for announcements on Microsoft teams after you are done with your English or French online lessons for invitations to virtual lunches, workouts and cooking lessons too!
