Welcome to the second edition of Things To Do With Vegetables When You’re…, my monthly celebration of vegetables and fruits and all good plant-y things in the form of a recipe I’ve cooked for my family recently.
Last time we started with one of my favourite things to eat (flatbreads with really tasty vegetable toppings) and this month we have what is probably my favourite way of eating pasta.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Wil
Summer ends in Finland precisely the same way college parties did for me twenty years ago: all too quickly, passed out in a bathtub, and having impressed nobody with my throaty renditions of My Chemical Romance songs…
Yep. Precisely the same.
And since autumn lasts all of 20 minutes here in Finland, I’m now firmly preparing myself for The Long Winter that is likely just weeks away. Thankfully, there is still beautiful fresh Finnish produce still lining the shelves, which gives me a semblance of summer to hold on to for a while.
This edition of Things To Do With Vegetables When You’re… features something I love doing throughout the year, though it seems particularly appropriate now at this liminal point at which beautiful summer veg is still available but the weather is starting to turn that little bit cooler…
The versatility of puree
I’ve made a fuss about puree on this newsletter before. A good puree can really bring a dish together for me in the way it’s a bit like a sauce but still very much a side. But what I also like to do is to blitz softened vegetables down and use the resulting creamy puree as a dressing for pasta. Not only is this delicious, but using vegetables this way has pretty much stopped my ever needing to use cream in pasta sauces, despite my absolutely loving a creamy pasta. Vegetables like courgette and aubergine are so creamy in themselves, they give that same richness while being so much more interesting.
And, yes, as a father of two, I can confirm it functions as a semi-reliable way of getting them to eat vegetables. Actually, my 3-year-old girl calls the recipe I’m sharing today “Elphaba pasta”.
Elphaba pasta is probably the pasta I make most often. It uses courgette and spinach with a touch of fragrant fennel seed to dress the pasta in an emerald-green sauce. But what makes this really delicious are the slow-caramelised onions, blue cheese and honey studded through the pasta. It just makes every bite a little bit special.
This is how I put it together…
Courgette, blue cheese and caramelised onion pasta gratin
