If Life Gives You Lemons...Make Lemon Fusilli

I'm starting to get a little antsy. We've had some very nice weather recently. Weather appropriate for spring. Warm, sunny days. Days that remind you that barbeques, gardening, and CARDINALS BASEBALL are just around the corner.

And then you wake up on April 6th to light snowfall and freezing wind. What a hoot! Someone needs to tell nature that April Fool's Day was 5 days ago, so no more screwing with us, please.

But I've already caught the warm weather bug and have been thinking a lot about warm weather foods. All week long I've been particularly craving grilled burgers (I haven't craved cheese burgers this bad since college when I lived with 20 other girls who nearly fainted at the very thought of eating red meat.). So today after a much-needed haircut I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and picked up everything I would need to make burgers and all the fixings. In this instance, the "fixings" were green beans (for the hubbie) and the ingredients of lemon fusilli.

The lemon fusilli recipe comes from Ina Garten's Barefoot at Home cookbook (or in this case, foodnetwork.com). On her show, Ina serves the fusilli as a main dish at a lunch for a friend, but I chose to use it as a side dish. Even as a kid I liked all the fun sides that went along with a barbeque: deviled eggs, pasta or potato salad (or both!), baked beans, etc. But lately, in an effort to be healthier, I've been trying to avoid eating an excessive amount of carbs (and it's hard...I love my carbs!). So this pasta dish seemed like a more reasonable alternative, both because it includes a lot of veggies, and because I deliberately made it a side, instead of a main dish. Unfortunately, I didn't take into account the fact that since Ina served this as a main dish, the portions of ingredients were main-dish portions. Thus I find myself with oodles of pasta salad left over. But that was the only real down side. So if any of you out there in Readerville are interested in a carb-o-licious meal, you know where to find me!

P.S. This would probably have worked out much better if I had halved all the ingredients.

Lemon Fusilli

(This is the recipe as published by Ina Garten. My alterations are discussed at the end.)


Ingredients:
1 tablespoon good olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (2 cloves)
2 cups heavy cream
3 lemons
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch broccoli
1 pound dried fusilli pasta
1/2 pound baby arugula (or 2 bunches of common arugula, leaves cut in thirds)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the garlic, and cook for 60 seconds. Add the cream, the zest from 2 lemons, the juice of 2 lemons, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until it starts to thicken.

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli in florets and discard the stem. Cook the florets in a pot of boiling salted water for 3 to 5 minutes, until tender but still firm. Drain the broccoli and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add 1 tablespoon of salt and the pasta, and cook according to the directions on the package, about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain the pasta in a colander and place it back into the pot. Immediately add the cream mixture and cook it over medium-low heat for 3 minutes, until most of the sauce has been absorbed in the pasta. Pour the hot pasta into a large bowl, add the arugula, Parmesan, tomatoes, and cooked broccoli. Cut the last lemon in half lengthwise, slice it 1/4-inch thick crosswise, and add it to the pasta. Toss well, season to taste, and serve hot.

My Alterations:
*Note: I seem to have lost my ability to follow directions, as I accidentally omitted the parmesan cheese (no way I would intentionally leave cheese out of anything). I also failed to put in the arugula, for the simple reason that I forgot to purchase some. Maybe next time...or maybe not, it was *really* good today just the way it was.

I didn't cook the pasta and the sauce together. I simply dumped the pasta, broccoli, and tomatoes into a big (huge, really) bowl and poured the sauce over it before tossing. I also added about half a red onion, which I would probably not do again. I thought it would add some nice heat and instead it was just a little too...oniony. Also, in the future I think the sauce could use a little more garlic, as that taste got lost in the lemony-ness. I also used Barilli's new mini fusilli pasta, which only needs to cook for about 7 minutes.

Overall, this was really good and I think it will become a favorite with a few...tweeks. =]