zucchini pasta

That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like, you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me." ~Mitch Hedberg

I make this dish more than I'm willing to admit, but Jeff will tell you we eat zucchini pasta at least once a week. Oh, we jazz it up with a little sliced red pepper or toasted pine nuts, but we are surprisingly content with the simplest version.


zucchini pasta
serves 4

olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
dried red pepper flakes
2-3 zucchini, depending on size, thinly sliced lengthwise*
course salt
pine nuts - optional
spaghettini
freshly grated parmesan

*A note about slicing the zucchini - Stainless steel cheese slicers (I love mine from Fiskars) are stellar for slicing vegetables.

Start with olive oil in a large saucepan on med-low heat. Sauté the garlic and red pepper flakes to flavour the olive oil. Turn up the heat to med-high before adding the zucchini slices and a couple pinches of salt. Cook, stirring ooccasionally until zucchini is done (10-15 mins). It’s especially lovely if it gets a little toasty brown. You really can’t overcook the zucchini unless you burn them because they aren’t meant to be crispy. Add the pine nuts.

Meanwhile, boil salted water for the pasta and cook al dente. Drain. Toss with the zucchs, top with parmesan, and serve.