I think we can all say that we are looking a little closer at the things we eat these days. Not just from a dieting calorie counting stand-point, but from a healthy lifestyle view. Movies like Food, Inc and shows like Jaime Oliver's food revolution have really brought to the forefront the idea behind trying to eat simpler, healthier and not so processed food.
I struggle with this daily. I love food and love to eat good food. I'm not happy replacing items that I love with things that are just over-processed and lower in fat/calories. Earlier this year, I started seeing a naturopathic doctor regarding some recurring issues. Since I've been seeing her, I've learned a lot about treating the underlying issue, and not just treating the symptom. An idea so simple that I'm working on approaching my diet the same way.
Over the past week I was introduced to two similar fresh and easy pasta recipes from two very cool bloggers - ModChick's Lindsey and PureMama's Juli. Both were simple, fresh, easy and OH SO DELISH.
Over at ModChick, Lindsay made her family a summer pappardelle with tomatoes and arugula. Go check out her pictures and tell me your mouth is not watering. I dare you! While I'm not not a fan of tomatoes (that's actually putting it nicely), I know that Jason loves them and that he would so dig this dish. And arugula ON your pasta?! I had never thought of that, but lemme tell you.. I may never eat pasta without it again.
Then last Saturday night my friend Juli from Pure Mama's had us over for dinner. She told me she was just whipping up some simple pasta, but I will say that nothing about this pasta was simple tasting. Juli sautéed some green beans, asparagus and garlic and in a separate pan mushrooms. She made some Angel Hair noodles, tossed in some olive oil - then served the pasta, the veggies with fresh parsley, toasted pine nuts, some parmesan cheese and a squeeze of lemon. Simple, easy, fresh and heavenly!
With these thoughts in mind as I ran to Trader Joe's at 5:00 yesterday (obviously, I'm insane), I did a bit of a mash-up between the two pastas. Jason's had the tomatoes, while the rest of us had the peas and asparagus mix.
The arugula, cheese and lemon made the dish for me, with the added hint of bacon crumbs rounding out the flavor with that touch of salt.
The kids liked it, Jason liked it - and I actually COOKED something which made everyone happy... we were in Pasta Heaven.