What I Really Eat: Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberries

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

I can’t be the only one who found a hidden half bag of rhubarb in my crisper. I can’t be the only one who bought way too many strawberries and now have the most melty batch ever hanging out in the fridge. I can’t be the only one who thought that even though it didn’t work the first two times, that maybe, maybe this time the recipe would work.

Am I the only one? It’s okay you can tell me.

I had lofty visions. There would be whey protein! And chia seeds! And almond milk! And most importantly the essence of summer in concentrate --- drippy chunks of caramelized, roasted strawberries and rhubarb. Then I would bask in that post yoga glow, drinking summer and recovery in a glass. I tried really, really hard to make the summeriest post workout shake I could. I now have the endless amount of essentially tasteless smoothie servings stacked up in my freezer to prove how hard I tried. Unfortunately for me and my next dozen yoga sessions, it just did not work. Short of using the entire batch of roasted fruit for just one serving, the sweet, puckery strawberry-rhubarb combo just did not translate through the rest of the shake. I guess I thought the flavors would be a bit more shouty. Also, I will admit that if I was trying for shakes not of the protein variety it probably would have worked much better.

On my last attempt I was a bit defeated as I packed up yet another batch bound for the freezer. But since I had resisted in dumping the entire batch of fruit into the blender, the remainder of the day I found myself scooping up spoonfuls of the roasted fruit straight to my mouth. If anything was worth sharing other than my tale of failure, it’s this dead simple recipe for roasted strawberries and rhubarb.

Recipe is obviously a strong word. Regardless, your morning yogurt or after dinner ice cream will be the better for it. I’m feeling wistful that I didn’t think to swirl it into a baked good. It just didn’t last that long.

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Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberries

Ingredients:

2 cups rhubarb diced into 1-inch pieces

2 cups strawberries halved

2 to 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar or other sweetener (feel free to add more, I like it tart)

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Spread fruit out across paper. Sprinkle with sweetener and then give it a good toss to coat evenly.

Put in oven until juices have released and fruit is bubbly and caramelized, about 45 minutes. Check at least once, and give it a toss if desired.

Makes approximately 2 cups of roasted fruit.

Grilled Vegetables with Burrata & Pesto

In all honesty my kitchen isn’t the tiniest NYC kitchen I’ve ever seen. Technically I could probably do half a cartwheel in it. I could have a pretty good solo yoga session in it, if I ever felt the need. It is lacking quite a bit of counter space, but being a decently responsible adult I’ve been able to remedy that with the recent purchase of a shiny new stainless steel kitchen cart. I think that maybe if my boyfriend had one wish it might be that we had a bigger, deeper sink. You see, when I cook, there’s this charming little tendency I have to use every single dish/bowl/pot/pan we have in the house. But if I had a magic wand in my hand, I know what my wish would be --- a fanhood for my stove. Without one, it makes pulling out the grill pan and getting a nice sear going on some risky business.

But I took that risk of a thoroughly smoky apartment so that this dream salad could come into existence. Fresh with crispy vegetables, smoky from grilling them, herby from pesto and downright fucking sexy from burrata, this platter can do no wrong. All you people who have things like decks, and charcoal, and pools to attend to this weekend will not even have to sweat grilling up these badass veggies. And then you’re gonna top it all with burrata. Because, burrata!!

Now, I’ve waxed poetic on burrata previously. Here is yet another love letter. It’s like the best mozzarella you’ll ever eat, but better. The second it is punctured, its oozy, silky, creamy insides pour out just asking to scooped up with whatever else is on the plate for the best bite of whatever that is because, burrata. It’s not to be skipped!

Listen, I’m sorry but we’re gonna have to live with the asparagus in the pictures. Spring is obviously gone and summer has come to stay, so together we’ll have to dream of comparable summer produce to sub in instead. I think green beans are probably the answer. However, based on what I know of summer produce (which is that it is all amazing), it shouldn’t be any trouble to pick your favorite, grill it, throw it on the plate, and douse it with pesto. Nothing you pick could be bad, I’m sure of it.

Lastly, I don’t wanna say that ya shoulda made my pesto, but ya shoulda made my pesto. Recipe here! But I won’t hold it against you if you just add whatever your favorite pesto is on top of all this goodness instead.

Happy Fourth, y’all!

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Grilled Vegetables with Burrata & Pesto

Ingredients:

8 ounces sugar snap peas, trimmed and stringed

1 bunch of asparagus, trimmed of woody ends (can sub 8 ounces trimmed green beans)

2 to 3 small red spring onions, sliced in thin rounds and laid out flat

olive oil

salt & pepper

8 ounces fresh burrata, removed from the water

½ cup carrot top garlic scape pesto (recipe here or other fresh pesto)

Directions:

In a large bowl toss the snap peas and asparagus with a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Drizzle the laid out onions with olive oil also, and season with salt and pepper, set aside. Try not to break the rings apart.

Heat up a grill or grill pan over a medium to high heat. Once it’s been brought up to temp, add a small batch of the vegetables in one layer on the grill. Turn the vegetables only once they have developed a nice set of grill marks.  Continue in batches until all vegetables have been grilled. The vegetables should still have a nice crunch to them.

To assemble, layer the vegetables on a big serving platter. Add the burrata to the top of the vegetables and drizzle the entire dish with a touch more olive oil. Season with a touch more salt and a heavy crank of black pepper. Add a few good dollops of pesto to the dish and serve. Alternatively, you could also toss the vegetables in the pesto before layering on plate.

Serves 6 to 8

Carrot Top Garlic Scape Pesto

I’m not exactly sure what to say about pesto. Because I’ve felt deeply for most of my adult life, that no, I do not like pesto. But now what I realize I actually don’t like is, I think, basil.

Something possessed me this past farmer’s market to pick up a bunch of baby carrots. It wasn’t a hard sell, they were ridiculously adorable looking and came with a bunch of fluffy green tops and they just screamed SPRING! and HEALTH! I had it in mind to use up last haul’s dill weed up by making this from the archives.

Not sure if you know this, but it’s pretty trendy these days to be a Dan Barber fan-girl. If you don’t know him, he is one of the poster boys for the sustainable food movement. One of his more recent ventures was turning his fancy Manhattan restaurant into a pop-up called wastED to bring attention to food waste. It was already a farm to table establishment, garnering most of its ingredients from Barber’s upstate and New England working farms. So basically he’s running for sainthood. You should check out his "Chef’s Table" episode on Netflix so we can all be fan-girls together. When does the pesto come in? I’m getting to that. 

Between him and resident cool girl, April Bloomfield, whose “top to tail” and “nose to tail” cooking has also inspired many a food waster to cut down. The recent author of “A Girl and Her Greens”, has lately had her roasted carrots with carrot top pesto making the internet rounds. So to state the obvious and get to the pesto, as I was shearing the greens from my baby carrots, I choose not to throw those greens out, but whirled them together with some usual pesto suspects.

It doesn’t taste like the pesto you know, because as noted above, I probably wouldn’t like it. But it’s herby and salty and lipsmackingly slick with olive oil as any good pesto probably should be. Since I used farmer’s market darling, the garlic scape instead of garlic, you can sub in two garlic cloves if you can’t find those.

I’m a total pesto convert, I’ve basically put it on and in everything this whole week. I even started dipping baby carrots in it, it seemed wrong...but also right...

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Carrot Top Garlic Scape Pesto

adapted from “A Girl and her Greens”

Ingredients:

2 cups packed roughly chopped carrot tops

3 garlic scapes roughly chopped (can sub 2 cloves smashed garlic)

salt and pepper

¼ cup packed grated parmesan

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

½ cup olive oil

Directions:

I made mine in my nutribullet, so I just dumped it all in the large vessel and let it do it’s blending thing.

If you are using a food processor, you are going to want to lightly pulse all the ingredients except for the olive oil until mostly combined. Then set it to process on a low setting and slowly pour the olive oil in through the opening of the top of the processor, blitzing just until it comes together.

Use on and in everything.

Store in the refrigerator in an air tight container with a light layer of olive oil on the top. It also freezes well.

Makes about 1 cup

Note: A few days later I smothered some grilled vegetables in this pesto and topped it all with burrata. Recipe here.

Very Green Salad

Back in the dead of winter, definitely in the middle of a snowstorm, I was desperate for a few things --- inspiration, hope, and maybe some fresh greens wouldn’t hurt. After being a really diligent seasonal eater, I had reached a point where ragged and frostbitten vegetables had gotten the best of me. I remember it very specifically (Feb 21st) because I had clocked quite possibly the worst week in work history ever and even had to work on the weekend because of it. I left my office that Saturday afternoon feeling defeated and weary and a little annoyed that because of both the snowstorm and it being late in the day, I had most likely missed my weekly farmer’s market run.  (Hence the need for inspiration and hope.)

Feeling resentful I headed downtown anyways to see if maybe, just maybe, I could still catch a few stands. There was one stand that particularly stood out amongst the few remaining. It was because through its clear plastic sheath the shock of green was blatant against the white blanket of snow that had coated the square. It was too springy and green and welcoming to not step in and admire for just a moment. I lost my steely seasonal resolve in about 30 seconds.

I remember thinking --- I’m sure these little leaves are grown inside and are not truly seasonal but they are everything to me right now. The little flower that was tucked into the top of each box was the bright spot in the eye of the storm and it made the whole day, week, world okay. It doesn’t take too much to make me happy, obviously. But seriously, at that moment it was just the ticket. 

I went home and made the greenest thing I could possibly manage because I needed it to not be cold and snowing and winter and the worst week ever. And somehow this salad helped me to pretend that, yes, maybe it was actually okay, and don’t worry spring is just around the corner, the days are getting lighter, and soon the flowers will bloom and it will all be fine.

This salad has been on repeat in my lunchbox/random dinner/midnight snack rotation for weeks now. But its true season has only just appeared. The baby lettuces, crispy romaines, and soft spinach leaves are being tucked into pillowy beds in every market stand these days. It’s perfect for a late spring salad, but obviously served me well through the dreary winter weather we only just left.

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Very Green Salad

Ingredients:

1 head romaine, cut into 1-inch pieces (or 8 ounces baby greens)

½ bunch lacinato kale, shredded

½ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup raw or roasted pepitas

1 cup golden raisins

1 avocado, sliced or cut up into 1-inch chunks

¼ cup shredded parmesan

juice of one lemon

good drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a small bowl until well combined.

Add the greens and toppings to a large bowl and pour dressing over. Toss gently to coat in dressing.

Serves 4 to 6

Rhubarb Swirl Cake

I took several lessons straight to heart as a young Connecticut country kid. One was that foraging for random things in the woods was a great way to get poison ivy on your hands (oh the misery). And that running around barefoot all summer in the clover covered lawn was a guarantee of many bee stings to the toes, which I now file under -- wish that was still a problem. And lastly – don’t ever, ever eat rhubarb’s toxic leaves.

My good friend Sarah, another city transplant who grew up in the fields of Connecticut’s countryside, said she also remembered foraging for rhubarb in the springtime. Once snatched up, she would dip the raw stalk briefly into the sugar bowl before each bite. (Pro tip)

Even now, I could lead you by the hand with my eyes closed to the place where the rhubarb grows. Each spring it matures in an uncultivated space on the right side of my mother’s garden, just outside the fence. There, it mingles with weeds, and grasses, and pricker bushes, waiting to be plucked and tucked into something sweet.

The rhubarb arriving every year was something I always looked forward to. The deep satisfaction of the seasons changing seemed to be important to me, even then. It’s arrival meant that the weather was getting warmer, school was almost over, summer was so close you could smell it. It meant that we were going strawberry picking so soon. However, I have no associations with actually consuming it. You see, my mother never really did anything with her rhubarb.

I wish I could tell you all that I have fond memories of strawberry rhubarb pies swirling around in my springtime memories of growing up. But in truth, it seems my mama wasn’t ever too big on pie. Which is why I’m probably not too big on pie. I have no consistent culinary memory link to it. I have one vague recollection of her making a crisp.

Rhubarb was one of the first things I picked up at the farmer’s market last year when I started going. I picked it up with only faint purpose since I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I knew it was seasonal, I knew it was fleeting and still --- those seem to be only two things I need to know to spend my entire savings account at a market stand. I ended up making this. And then I made it a few more times with the rhubarb I’d begged my mother to pick from her garden and freeze for me. A few weeks ago when I was not-so-patiently waiting for rhubarb and strawberries to show up, buried within my too full freezer I discovered a baggie of both rhubarb and strawberries from last summer --- a bonafide win. They soon found themselves stirred into a pot with some vanilla to make some more. I have new associations and now (strawberry) rhubarb compote means that spring is here.

Once I finally got my hands on some actual rhubarb, swirling some saucy fresh stuff into some cake was definitely an upgrade. Say you want those swirls even more shockingly pink, (if you couldn’t tell by my instagram feed), strawberries are here people(!!!) Use this compote recipe to swirl in instead. I, however, really liked the puckery rhubarb all by itself. I also love this rhubarb sauce’s demure shade of pink. Almost like it’s not quite calling attention to itself until it hits your tongue and it’s an explosion of pleasant tartness.

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Rhubarb Swirl Cake

adapted from this recipe by Cannelle et Vanille

Yield: 1 nine inch square cake

Ingredients:

Rhubarb sauce:

2 cups diced rhubarb

½ cup raw sugar

juice of half a lemon

Cake:

3 eggs

1 cup raw sugar

1 cup full fat greek yogurt

1/2 cup melted unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup millet flour

2 tablespoons tapioca starch

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

powdered sugar for sprinkling (if desired)

Directions:

In a small saucepan over low to medium heat stir together the diced rhubarb, ½ cup of sugar, and the lemon juice. Stir occasionally. Keep at a simmer. It will take about 30 minutes for the rhubarb to breakdown and come to desired consistency. Once it is thick and jammy, turn off heat and allow to cool down a bit.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a 9-inch square cake pan with parchment paper.

Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla extract.

Add in the white rice flour, millet flour, tapioca starch, baking powder and salt. Whisk again to thoroughly incorporate.

Pour into the cake pan and spread it out evenly.

Dollop four thick lines of the rhubarb compote onto the top of the batter. Using a toothpick, knife, or skewer drag through the rhubarb lines to create a swirling design throughout the top of the cake.

Bake cake for 40 to 45 minutes minutes or until it’s edges have turned golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.

Let cake cool in pan. Using the edges of the parchment paper, lift the cake out of the pan. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. Cut into squares.

Note: You will probably have some rhubarb compote left over. Swirl it into other things like yogurt or ice cream or oatmeal. Sometimes I just eat it with a spoon, but that’s just me.

Spring Vegetable Brown Fried Rice

Do you smell it? Let’s try and guess what I might be talking about.

Am I talking about the May flowers that are making our eyes water and our noses sniffle? Perhaps I'm speaking of freshly cut grass or the smell of burgers sizzling on a grill. You probably don’t know what I'm talking about because you live somewhere beautiful and green and sane.

No. No, instead I’m talking about what Deb Perelman of smitten kitchen aptly describes in a post of hers as “eau de hot trash.” A distinct sign of rising temperatures in New York City, the overflowing trash buckets begin to literally bake in the sun. By 10a.m., if you close your eyes you might think you’ve commuted directly into a landfill.

Planning on visiting our fair city this summer or one day soon? Don't worry, you get used to it.

It seems that we’ve all but totally skipped spring. I’m not totally unhappy about it because I love this stinking hot weather and like I said, you get used to it. I like to think of myself as a cold blooded reptile. Now I can slither out to a nice sunny rock (my mother’s deck) and warm up my bones. You know what else likes this sunny weather? Strawberries. In season local strawberries, literally sunkissed and still warm to the touch, are worth these smelly, smelly mornings. They just started popping up at the New York greenmarkets and soon I will take a drive with my mother and we will handpick and drag home way too many pounds of them. Strawberries also mean that not far off in our futures are those other elusive summer standbys. In other words --- I’m dying for an August tomato.

This doesn’t mean that I’m sick of springtime’s well-timed fare. It arrives just when you’re about to go nuts that your market haul was a handful of wintered-over carrots and past-their-prime apples. Fresh and green comes to save you in the form of asparagus, peas, and the ever exclusive ramp. These three spring stars are the basis for this quick fried rice-esque side. Since ramp season is fleeting and just about over, feel free to sub any other springtime allium in if you can't find them anywhere. I also made it once with quinoa and it was just as good. Super simple, super seasonal, with minimal time spent at the stove. Plus, with similarities to the stuff that you can grab at your corner Chinese joint, it is so, so good cold from the fridge.

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Spring Vegetable Brown Fried Rice

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons neutral oil like avocado oil for sauteing

2 eggs

salt

1 cup chopped ramps (can sub spring garlic, spring onions, or garlic scapes)

1 cup asparagus chopped into 1-inch pieces

1 cup frozen or fresh peas

2 cups cooked brown rice (or white rice, or quinoa)

soy sauce to taste

sesame oil to taste

Directions:

In oiled pan over high heat, crack the eggs directly into pan as if you were going to fry them. Season with a bit of salt. Let the whites set for a few seconds then puncture the yolk with the spatula and begin to pan scramble them. Once the eggs are fully cooked remove from pan and set aside.

Add a bit more oil to the same pan and add the vegetables. Season them with a bit of salt. Saute over high heat until asparagus is bright green, peas have thawed, and ramps have wilted. This will take 2 to 3 minutes at the most. Once cooked, remove from pan and set aside.

Add a bit more oil to the pan and then add cooked rice to the pan. Stir rice to coat in oil and reheat. If you aren’t using a nonstick pan, the rice will probably stick a bit. Just do your best to scrape it up as you go. Once rice is fully broken up and heated through and beginning to “fry”, add the eggs and vegetables to the pan with the rice. Drizzle a touch of sesame oil onto the stir fry and a couple dashes of soy sauce to taste.

Stir the sesame oil and soy sauce into the stir fry to incorporate. Taste for seasoning, add more soy sauce if needed. Once all components are fully combined, remove from heat and serve.

Serves 4 to 6 as a side. Add protein to bump to a main.

Ramp Ricotta Meatballs

At what point do we all start getting indignant about turning on an oven? At what point do the words meatballs and braise sound too heavy and hot to bear even listening to just because the warmth outside has climbed beyond our collective comfort zone?

I've never been one to not cook because it’s too hot outside. Not sure if you remember, but I had my oven ripping during a heatwave at the end of August in name of pulled pork for dinner. It was so hot in my kitchen that whipping cream refused to whip and these baked peaches had some very lackluster cream drizzle as their garnish. In actuality it was way too hot to have my oven going that day. But that was at the end of August --- very different from these end of spring chilly mornings.

I, for one, have had no problem packing these babies up these past chilly mornings. To top it off, I don’t know about your offices, but mine borders on arctic level temperatures most days. It’s nice sometimes to inhale something comforting and warming after spending the morning with numb fingertips.

I’d also like to think of them as a transition food. They could be considered winter fare for sure. But that springy dollop of ramp ricotta folded into the meat mix not only keeps them moist but adds a fresh spring spin on something normally considered hearty.

While I nestled these little nuggets among some sturdy kale, they would be just as tasty on a bed of fresh baby spinach  leaves which would really lighten the meal up to spring standards. Truthfully, they would also easily fit in among some red sauce --- spaghetti and meatball status, but that brings up unwanted memories of harsh winter weather, which I am desperately trying to forget.

Let’s dismiss that from our minds together and focus on all of the ramps, and peas, and spinach, and rhubarb this spring has brought us!

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Ramp Ricotta Meatballs

with garlicky braised kale

Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten

¼ cup almond flour or oats

½ cup leftover roasted ramp ricotta (recipe can be found within here)

salt and pepper

1 pound ground meat

olive oil for frying

2 bunches kale, chopped into 1-inch pieces (approximately 6 cups)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup chicken stock

¼ cup shredded parmesan

dash of butter

red pepper flakes, if desired

Directions:

(Recipe for ramp ricotta can be found within this recipe)

In a large bowl, mix beaten egg, almond flour, ramp ricotta, and salt and pepper until well combined. Add in the ground meat and begin to gently incorporate until well combined.  Take care not to overwork the meat, let’s keep it tender up in here.

Roll tablespoonfuls of the meat mix into golf ball sized meatballs. You should get about 25 balls out of this.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Once the meatballs have been rolled, heat olive oil in a medium to large ovenproof skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot enough, begin browning meatballs one small batch at a time. Brown the meatballs on all sides and set on a paper-towel lined plate to drain. Continue in batches until all meatballs are browned. Set aside.

Immediately add kale to the same pan. You may have to do this in batches as kale wilts down. Toss to coat in olive oil and meat fat. Salt and pepper to taste. Once kale has wilted down a bit, make a space in the middle of the skillet and add in minced garlic. Saute until fragrant and then mix into the kale. Add the cup of chicken broth, butter, and the parmesan. Stir. Season to taste, add pepper flakes here if desired.

Remove skillet from heat and nestle those little meatballs into the kale mix. Garnish with a bit more parm if desired and then throw into the oven to braise for about 15 minutes.  Serve.

Serves 4 to 6

Roasted Ramp Ricotta Pasta

I keep buying ramps. I keep buying them like I have the faintest clue what to do with them. Sometimes I think I am just buying them for the sake of their seasonality. I know they’re only here for a short time and I mean, everyone else is buying them…

Where’s a mom with her sayings about bridges?

Instagram was telling me that I could just roast them and end it there. Perhaps poach an egg and call it a night. Instagram was also really selling ramp pesto. I wanted to do something else, truth be told I’m not that big on pesto.

Sometimes a new experience, a new adventure, a new place can serve as inspiration. 

And sometimes that place is Brooklyn.

Since the weather’s been getting nicer, my boyfriend and I have been really diligent about going to different areas of the city and just ‘splorin on the weekends. We’ve both lived here alotta years but feel like there are whole parts of the city we’ve never seen. Two Saturdays ago we spent the entire afternoon and night walking all over Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Iced coffees were slurped, comfort food was had, ice cream was discovered, a frisbee was tossed, sunset was seen with toes in the grass. We didn’t want the day to end so we wandered around again until we found a cute little restaurant to grab some matching whiskey on the rocks.

Since we were still full from a heavy lunch, we sat at the bar and just sipped on our Jamesons, but I couldn’t help but look at the menu anyway. Just as I was thinking that the next day I really had to come up with a way to use those ramps --- I spotted a ricotta ramp pasta on the specials menu that sounded completely inspiring. Very springy, very simple sounding, very much something I thought I could replicate with some adaptations here and there.

So I figured out what to do with those ramps.

Watch those roasting ramps carefully! My first time roasting ramps I lost the poor things. Burnt to a crisp. RIP. A little char on the ends is a nice contrast but otherwise you just want them to soften and caramelize a bit. Also, can I just say you’re not doing it right if you’re not covered in dirt and leaves when dealing with your ramps. Clean them very well. They have a lot of crevices and those crevices have mud in them.

If you can find fresh peas, bless you -- USE THEM. I made do with some frozen ones.

And by all means, you can use whatever type of pasta you like, I used a gluten-free, “paleo” pasta by Cappello’s.

Last note, you probably won’t use the entire batch of ramp ricotta, but I can assure you I didn’t have a hard time figuring out how to use the rest. I may have spread it on some toast with roasted red peppers and pepitas. I also may have folded it into some meatballs…

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Roasted Ramp Ricotta Pasta

inspired by a special at Juliette

Ingredients:

1 bunch ramps, trimmed of ends and cleaned very well

olive oil for roasting

salt and pepper

8 oz ricotta (about 1 ½ cups)

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

½ cup diced bacon

1 cup fresh or frozen peas

1 box Cappello’s Fettucine (or approximately 8 oz fresh pasta / 4 oz dry pasta)

squeeze of half a lemon

shredded parmesan for sprinkling (if desired)

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a roasting pan, spread ramps out evenly amongst each other. Drizzle well with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for about 15 to 20 minutes. Begin checking them at around 10 minutes to ensure they do not burn.

While ramps are roasting, begin preparing the other components. Fill a medium sized saucepan with salted water and begin bringing it to a boil for the pasta. In a small bowl fold the majority of the chopped parsley into the ricotta, reserve a bit of the parsley for garnish if desired.

Once the ramps have finished roasting, remove from oven and let sit for a bit until cool enough to handle. Meanwhile begin to render out the bacon in a pan over medium heat. Once bits are close to getting nice and crispy, toss in the peas. Cook the peas until just warmed through and bacon is nice and brown. Remove from heat.

Take the cooled ramps and give them a nice chop. Fold the chopped ramps into the ricotta mixture. Then season it with salt and pepper to taste.

Now that all your components are ready, prepare the pasta. If you’re not using the Cappello’s pasta or a fresh pasta, do your best to accommodate for the cooking time of dry pasta. Cappello’s or fresh pasta only takes about a minute to cook, so I always cook it last.

As soon as pasta is done cooking, reserve a bit of the cooking water, drain the pasta and dump it into a large mixing bowl. Immediately add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the ricotta mix to the pasta. Add the bacon, peas, and some of the bacon fat to the bowl as well. Begin to toss together. I find that using a pair of tongs helps to turn the pasta into the mix gently. If you feel it needs a bit of help becoming saucy add a touch of the reserved cooking water until it’s the desired consistency. A squeeze of lemon at the end helps brighten the whole thing up.

Serve with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and shredded parmesan.

Serves 4