The secrets to carefree weekday pasta dinners? First, stock the fixings. Dried pastas, tinned tomatoes, hard grating cheese, fully cooked meatballs or sausage, dried herbs and olive oil. Second, prep a few things in advance. I roast vegetables, make sauces, saute onions and mushrooms, slip an extra ear or two of corn into the pot, even cook ground meat a day or two ahead. At dinner time, I simply reheat ingredients and boil water.
The recipes that follow are my homage to the waning days of farmers markets and farm stands. I'm happily buying up the last of the local tomatoes, corn, eggplant and fresh peppers. With any luck, there are still herbs in the garden for a quick pesto or to flavor a creamy sauce.
The cilantro-almond pesto here uses lots of fresh cilantro and no cheese, which makes a light sauce for flat pastas such as fettucine, linguine or tagliatelle. I also add a little fresh basil because I love the slight licorice taste it imparts. Other options to add to the cilantro include the tender fronds from a bulb of fresh fennel, or a leaf or two of fresh epazote or hoja santa, herbs common in Mexican cooking.
Make the pesto several days in advance and refrigerate it in a jar. Always cover the pesto with a thick film of olive oil as a barrier to prevent browning. Then remove the pesto from the refrigerator so it can warm to room temperature before tossing it with the hot pasta.
Time-crunched? Use store-bought pesto with some chopped fresh cilantro stirred into it. Likewise, feel free to substitute frozen meatballs for the homemade chicken version below. Another fast option is to simply slice fully cooked chicken sausage and brown the slices to serve with the pesto pasta.
The meatballs can be formed several hours ahead of cooking and refrigerated. Once cooked, they will keep about two days in the refrigerator.
Creamy pasta tempts me every time. For the version here, the sauce is made from egg yolks, mascarpone and cheese _ no cooking required. Ridged, tube-shaped pasta allows the sauce to cling to all the surfaces beautifully. Roasted eggplant and shishito peppers cut the richness. If you'd like, brown { pound of Italian sausage or ground pork and add it to the dish for an indulgently rich main course.
As for the rest of my pasta meal, I just want good, hearty bread to use to clean every drop from my plate. And perhaps a simple salad of bitter greens, such as romaine and radicchio dressed with a little olive oil and sherry vinegar.
Ice cream seems like the right dessert here. We cooked, after all. Serve small scoops of coffee ice cream topped with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Or, try a cup of vanilla gelato topped with a shot of hot espresso. The perfect reward.
