Italian at Heart

I love pasta and most Italian food but unfortunately I don't eat it as much as I'd like for fear of the deadly carbs. When I do, I like it interesting full of yummy add-ins like veggies. Here are a few pasta dishes I made in the last few weeks.



This dish was discovered on a fellow foodie blog, and it's called Drunken Pasta. Now WHO can resist a name like that? I followed the recipe and minimized the salt, but at the end, found that I needed to add more. I guess it's better than having too much salt by putting it in throughout the recipe. Alongside is a sugar snap pea salad with onions and lemon. You can find the recipe for the pasta here.


For a deliciously light and healthy pasta dish with shrimp, I found this great summer recipe in a Good Housekeeping May 2006 issue. It is chock full of fresh veggies like asparagus, carrots, and snow peas, plump pink shrimp, and a surprisingly light cream sauce. The only problem I found was getting the sauce to reach all the noodles and ingredients, it tended to sink to the bottom of the serving dish, so make sure you toss well, or continuously.

Pasta Primavera
Ingredients:
1 package (16 ounces) medium shell or bow-tie pasta (I used spiral/rotini pasta)
4 medium carrots, sliced diagonally into 1/8-inch-thick slices
2 cups broccoli florets (half a 12-ounce bag) and/or 2 cups 2-inch pieces asparagus (8 ounces)
6 ounces snap peas or snow peas, strings removed, or 1 cup frozen peas
1 cup heavy or whipping cream
1 teaspoon grated fresh lemon peel
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper
1 pound uncooked frozen or fresh shelled and deveined large shrimp, with tail part of shell left on if you like
3 plum tomatoes or 2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 cup loosely packed mixed fresh herbs such as basil, mint, dill, and/or parsley leaves, coarsely chopped

Directions
1. Heat large covered saucepot of salted water to boiling over high heat.
2. Add pasta to water in saucepot; heat to boiling over high heat. Cook pasta 3 minutes. Add carrots, broccoli, and snap peas to pasta; heat to boiling. Cook pasta and vegetables 3 minutes longer. Remove 1/2 cup pasta cooking water; set aside. In colander, drain pasta and vegetables; set aside.
3. In same saucepot, heat cream, lemon peel, reserved pasta cooking water, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper to boiling over high heat, stirring occasionally. Add frozen shrimp and cook 5 minutes or just until shrimp turn opaque throughout. (If using fresh shrimp, cook only 2 to 3 minutes.)
4. Add pasta and vegetables to shrimp mixture in saucepot. Add tomatoes and mixed herbs and toss to combine; heat through.