Spring Veggie Pasta

It's really spring. That means veggies - and soon veggies from farmers markets (yay!). So in honor of the wonder of produce, I made a veggie pasta yesterday afternoon with some misc items laying around my kitchen.

Spring Veggie Pasta

1/4 box of whole wheat pasta (I used penne ... you don't have to use whole wheat I just had some in my pantry)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 onion, diced (a shallot would work too, I just had a white onion that needed to be used up)
2 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup chopped asparagus (chop each spear into thirds or quarters approximately)
1/3 cup peas (I cheated and used frozen because thats what I had)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (again, total cheater we had a bottle in the fridge and no real lemons laying around)
Salt
Black pepper
Red pepper flakes (because I put them on everything. Seriously. Not necessary to this recipe.)

Key ingredients: peas, asparagus, onion, basil, and lemon juice.

Do the pasta in the boiling water thing - about 10 minutes. Careful with whole wheat pasta, it can overcook easily.

In a pan, heat the olive oil, add the two chopped cloves of garlic and the diced onion. Cooking them until soft but don't burn them or you'll never get rid of that burned taste.

Add the peas and asparagus and cook until tender.

Drain the pasta, turn the heat of the saute pan, and dump the pasta into the pan with the veggies. Add the lemon juice, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste.

Sprinkle the top with fresh chopped basil.

Notes:

Pretty delicious. Could have lots of variations. Feel free to try it, change it, and comment on this post telling everyone ways to improve this dish.

Eat up!

-Robin-