Lean and Green Summertime Pasta
Did you know that the word green is closely related to the Old English verb growan, "to grow"? Nope? Neither did we, until this recipe inspired us to start digging around. It seems it’s not just by coincidence that the word we use to describe the colour of our veggies happens to be linked to nature, grass and other healthy stuff. With a combination of light and healthy ingredients we’ve created this little dish to give you a quick, delicious nutrition fix that you can have ready in no time at all. Enviable by anyone’s standards...
Boxes and ingredients are packed in facilities that handles Peanut, Nuts, Sesame, Fish, Crustaceans, Milk, Egg, Mustard, Celery, Soya, Gluten and Sulphites. Due to the conflict in Ukraine, it has been necessary to substitute sunflower oil with rapeseed oil in some products without a label change. The FSA have advised that allergic reactions to rapeseed oil are rare.
1 cup(s)
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
1 cup(s)
Courgette
½ cup(s)
Sugar Snap Peas
4 tbsp
Basil 20g
220 grams
Wheat Penne Pasta
(ContainsCereals containing Gluten)4 tbsp
Creme Fraiche
(ContainsMilk)2 tbsp
Grated Hard Italian Style Cheese
(ContainsMilk, Egg)½ unit(s)
Lemon
Put a large pan of water on the hob with a ¼ tsp of salt and bring it to the boil for your pasta.
Remove any leaves from your broccoli and cut off the bottom ½cm from the stalk. Chop the very top and bottom from your courgette before dicing into roughly 1cm chunks. Finally halve the sugar snap peas, tear up the basil.
Put your pasta into the boiling water for around 10 mins, or until ‘al dente’ (i.e. there is just a hint of firmness left in the middle). 3 mins before it is cooked you should add the broccoli and sugar snap peas. Don’t worry: we’ll remind you again later ;-)
Heat up ½ tbsp of olive oil in a pan on high heat and fry off the courgette in batches with a pinch of salt and pepper. By cooking in batches you can brown off the vegetables rather than stew them, giving them a much nicer texture.
Add 2 tbsp of the pasta water in the pan with the courgettes together with 4 tbsp of crème fraîche, three quarters of the hard Italian cheese and a tsp of squeezed lemon juice. Tip: Just cut the lemon in half and give it a good squeeze. No need to be too exact.
Here’s that reminder: 3 mins before the pasta is ready add the sugar snap peas and the broccoli into the same pan of water.
Drain the pasta and the vegetables when they are ready. Add them straight into the pan with the courgettes and the crème fraiche. Add three quarters of the torn basil.
Serve your pasta with a sprinkle of cheese, basil and a bit of grated lemon zest (but none of the bitter white part). And if anyone asks where you got the recipe? Say Mother Nature told you so.