We have been thoroughly enjoying local farmers markets this year. Tomatoes in my pretty-high altitude garden traditionally have not been as successful as I would like, and although I'll never give up trying, we decided this year we could fill in the kitchen gaps with home-grown that's not grown at my home. And we have not been disappointed!
Of course, no trip to a farmers market can rest upon JUST tomatoes. We've bought peaches, red onions, sweet Olathe corn, zucchini (another veggie I have not been able to successfully grow at home), homemade chili sauces (because sometimes I run out of my own homegrown chiles), a giant hibiscus, and, most recently, handcrafted, flavor-infused pasta.
Turns out Pappardelle's started right here in Denver, which makes the pasta even more of a treat for us. We like homemade. We like slow food. Turns out these guys were making slow food before it became a trend!
I've made homemade pasta, and there's nothing like it. But it's a long and messy process. I don't have time to make homemade pasta every week, although I wish I did! I've even played around with different flours and spices right in the noodles, so my first dish of Pappardelle's (which was a southwest blend) made me go back for more flavors!
Who can resist pasta made from Hatch chiles?!?
We've also enjoyed garlic basil noodles, as well as lime cilantro and porcini mushroom. But when you buy southwest-themed noodles, regular spaghetti sauce just won't do!
Pappardelle's has recipes to go with each flavor of noodle they make, but I like to do my own thing. Here's the scrumptious dish we enjoyed with our thick, flavorful spicy linguini noodles.
Spicy Noodles that Bite Back
After boiling water and cooking the noodles with a touch of avocado oil and garlic, I brown a package of turkey breakfast sausage (because we don't eat pork or beef) with minced fresh garlic and onion. The red onion comes from the farmers market because my onions don't grow quite big enough for cooking but are large enough to keep most bunnies out of my veggies.
I slice up four good-size tomatoes to toss in the blender. I add one of my own diced chiles from my own garden and with some chopped garlic and onion and a bit of avocado oil. Oh, and I recently discovered the secret to out-of-this-world homemade tomato sauce... a tablespoon of fresh honey or agave syrup! Blend until smooth.
Normally, I would slice the fresh Olathe (Colorado, not Kansas) sweet corn off the cob to add in to the turkey sausage, but there wasn't any at the farmers market last weekend. I hadn't been to the grocery store, where I also could buy sweet Olathe corn. So for this batch, I am using a can of white corn.
I also prefer soaking and cooking my own black beans, but that adds a few days to the process, and I didn't plan ahead this time. So a can of low-salt black beans will be added to the meat.
I dice a fresh avocado from the grocery store. The cleaned avocado pit goes in the freezer to be used as next summer's avocado dye, and the cleaned and torn-into-tiny-pieces skin goes into this summer's avocado dye jar.
By this time, the meat and the noodles both have cooled off. 16 ounces of fresh green chili go over the noodles, which are then stirred to saturate.
Now the meat, corn, beans and avocado are stirred in. Oh, does my kitchen smell heavenly!
Finally, the tomato sauce is poured over and stirred in. Ready to serve!
Additional avocado may be added just prior to eating to tone down the heat.
Sure looks like you are eating good indeed. Yeah, farmers markets have quite the assortment and if you can't grow it, better to get it directly from who does.
ReplyDeleteThis is making my tummy growl. :)
ReplyDeleteI used to love making my own pasta. Now that the gluten era is past, we do cauliflower instead. It's good, but not the same as a nice toothy pasta!