Hello Rootabaga subscribers!
Welcome to a very exciting week of the Rootabaga subscription program. We have a delicious, versatile, and beautiful new vegetable to share with you this week, everybody’s favourite, the red bell pepper! And I have a recipe to share that I’ve been sitting on for this very moment, Roasted Red Pepper Pasta. It’s creamy and comforting without being too heavy, and packs tons of flavour thanks to blackening the red peppers in the oven before making the sauce. It’s a favourite in our household and it’s sure to be a welcome treat in yours! Also in the small subscription this week, we have:
Red Bell Peppers – Stokdijk Greenhouses, conventionally-grown
Onions – Noggins Corner Farm, conventionally-grown
Russet Potatoes – Noggins Corner Farm, conventionally-grown
Mini Cucumbers – Stokdijk Greenhouses, conventionally-grown
Carrots – Conventionally-grown PEI
Hot House Tomatoes – Den Haan Greenhouses, conventionally-grown
Gala Apples – Noggins Corner Farm, conventionally-grown
The large subscription has all the above as well as:
3 red bell peppers instead of 2
3 mini cucumbers instead of 2
3lbs of gala apples instead of 2
Bramble Hill Microgreens – Bramble Hill Farm, conventionally-grown
Jalapeño – Stokdijk Greenhouses, conventionally-grown
It’s exciting to be seeing the produce subscriptions come together with more and more tender spring veggies. After a winter of delicious root vegetables and cabbage, the seasonal changes are exciting for all of us at Uprooted. And it’s one of the best parts of the job to share that excitement with our customers! This week I’m excited to share this recipe for Red Pepper Pasta. It’s based on a recipe from the Minimalist Baker Blog, but I have edited it so heavily that it barely resembles their pasta at this point. This version makes for a fragrant, creamy pasta, with delicate roast pepper flavour, it comes together in under an hour start to finish.
- Ingredients:
- 2 red bell peppers
- 1 small onion
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon black pepper, more to taste
- 1 teaspoon salt, more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, and a drizzle more for roasting the veggies
- ¼ cup Knoydart whole milk
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- ½ cup Knoydart old cheddar, shredded
- 1 cup pasta water
- 12 ounces penne pasta
- Method:
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Remove the skin and slice the onions in half, peel the garlic cloves, and toss them in olive oil. Place the bell peppers whole on one half of the baking sheet and the garlic and onion on the other half. Roast the vegetables for 20-25 minutes until the outsides are charred. Once blackened, turn the oven off and cover the baking sheet with aluminum foil. Let everything steam for 10 minutes then remove the foil and let cool.
- Meanwhile, put all the ingredients garlic powder through to milk in a blender. Remove the stems and skins from the bell peppers and scoop out the seeds. Put them in the blender and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Salt generously as the flavour will be diluted when added to the pasta.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the penne according to package directions. When the penne is al dente, drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of pasta water. Pour the pasta sauce including the pasta water and cheese over the penne. Stir over low heat until sauce is desired thickness.
- Serve with parmesan cheese or more Knoydart shredded old cheddar on top. I like to add fresh pea shoots to mine as well.
This pasta is almost as good as your house will smell as you’re roasting onion, garlic, and red peppers. It’s the perfect celebration of the season’s first bell peppers! You can definitely serve it as is, but it would also be great with sliced Cogmagun Chicken breast, some Osprey’s Roost Sausage, or I enjoyed the pasta with a tin of Mary Manette Smoked Muscles.
Also this week I’m going to be trying this new potato salad recipe: https://www.mariaushakova.com/2018/04/potato-cucumber-salad/. It is a mayo-less potato salad made with a dilly-vinaigrette style dressing instead and lots of fresh cucumbers. We serve a similar potato salad in house sometimes and it’s always a customer (and staff!) favourite. The recipe calls for fresh dill but as it isn’t in season yet I will substitute dried. A fresh hot house tomato would be delicious diced into it as well. And I’ll be adding 2 diced and hard-boiled Canaan Land Pastured Eggs for protein. The perfect lunch! Or make it dinner served beside some Vessel Meats Sausages and a side of Nova Beet Kraut.
I accidentally found a delicious new way to eat apples. I had a little bit of Ran-Cher acres goat cheese left that needed eating. I spread a slice of toast with a little bit of Ash Hill Farm creamed honey, then added my remaining goat cheese, and topped it all with thin slices of gala apples. It’s the perfect combination of sweet and savoury. I’ve been eating it for an afternoon snack almost daily since!
That’s a wrap on this week folks. Thank you for reading and following along with our journey to eat more locally grown and fresh seasonal produce!
Until next week,
Robin
