Monday, June 23, 2008

Three Spring Sisters Pasta

Subterranean moles continue their deviltry in the garden and left me with exactly three spinach plants, three fennel plants and three
Italian dandelion plants in my carefully planted and tended rows. I
have been summoning mole hunting advice from all quarters and have several options profferred from my neighbors, blogger buddies and bookstore customers:

1) Poke mothballs into the mole tunnels

2) Poke unwrapped wads of unchewed pink bubble gum into the mole tunnels (the moles apparently choke while chewing).

3) Pour gasoline into the mole tunnels.

4) Get a Jack Russell terrier.

All of the above seem worth investigating, although I am an organic
gardener and don't think I want to ingest mothballs and gasoline
(especially not at $4.29 a gallon!) and the chewing gum idea seems a
bit cruel. I don't mind mole hills and tunnels in my lawn, but when
they start eating my groceries, I turn into Mr. MacGregor. Please let
me know if you have any other methods for banning moles from my
vegetable patch.

With my trio of spinach plants, some fresh garden peas and fat asparagus spears, mercifully spared by the mole brigade, I put together a light pasta sauce which came out rather deliciously and which I thought I would share with others.

Three Spring Sisters Pasta

10 asparagus spears, trimmed and sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
1/2 cup fresh peas
3 spinach plants (or more if you got 'em!), chopped
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1 (1 lb.) box of your favorite pasta
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta and drain. Keep warm.

Heat saute pan. When hot, add butter and olive oil and let butter melt. Add garlic and stir around for 1 minute. Add white wine and bring to boil. Lower heat and reduce liquid to half.

Add peas, spinach and asparagus. Cover and cook over medium heat about 3-5 minutes, or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste and toss with your pasta.

Serves 6.

This recipe is being submitted for this week's round of Weekend Herb Blogging started by Kalyn's Kitchen and actually hosted by her this time! Check Kalyn's blog later in the week for a roundup of other blog posts featuring vegetables, flowers and herbs. With gardens and farmers markets in full swing in the northern hemisphere this should be a great roundup!

2 comments:

Kalyn Denny said...

I'm afraid I don't have any mole advice. The pasta sounds good though!

Anonymous said...

For a second I thought you were referring to Mexican moles... I'm sorry to say I don't have any advice, either.