So I’ve never really liked parsley. I’m not really sure why, I love pretty much all other herbs and I don’t really hate it, but sorry parsley I’m just not that into you. Well I wasn’t. But that might be a-changing. Last time my little brother came to visit he cooked me dinner. Now please don’t underestimate the significance of this event, this is pretty much the first proper meal he has ever cooked me that wasn’t made out of eggs. This is partly as he doesn’t cook that much and partly because I cook so much. But it was definitely nice to be on the other side of the kitchen for a change.
He decided to make this pasta dish from Binging with Babish he had recently made. The recipe is pretty simple and calls for pasta, garlic, parsley, lemon and red pepper flakes. Though I’m not the biggest fan of parsley I was so impressed he was going to cook I would have eaten pretty much anything put in front of me. We went ingredient shopping but couldn’t find any red pepper flakes (it was a small town). No worries, I had dried red chillis to substitute. Spoiler alert, dried red chillis don’t equal red pepper flakes.
As I dug into the pasta it slowly started getting hotter and hotter…turns out that the crushed up dried chillis I had were a little hotter than the red pepper flakes. But this was the first meal my brother had made me, so I was determined to eat it and enjoy it all. I’m not the worst when it comes to heat, but I did have to load the pasta up with ALOT of extra parsley to make it through. I ended eating so much parsley to offset the hotness that I somehow got converted. I’m still not sure how my brother happily ate it all up + leftovers in the pan without breaking a sweat. This was the kid who was the fussiest eater growing up, we had a running family joke that he would only eat things that were completely covered in ketchup.
But at the end of the day I got dinner cooked for me and a pasta recipe worth stealing. So thank you to my lil brother for cooking for me and introducing me to lemon and parsley pasta combo. I did skip the chillis for this one though!
About this recipe: if you really need a carb hit, stop reaching for that jar of ready made sauce and try this one out. The work involved, chop some courgettes and tomatoes and put them to roast in the oven, put the pasta on and that’s pretty much it. It’s also good served with a side of grilled fish.
Courgette, Tomato and Feta Pasta
Serves: 2
200g tagliatelli
2 courgettes
10 cherry tomatoes
3 tbsp olive oil
zest of half lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
50g feta
handful of parsley
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 200C.
Slice the courgettes, coat both sides with olive oil. Halve the tomatoes. Place on a baking sheet and roast in the oven.
Bring a pan of water to boil, add the tagliatelli, lower to a simmer and cook for 10mins.
Once the pasta is cooked, drain. Add the olive oil and lemon and mix well. Add the roasted courgettes, tomatoes, feta, parsley and a pinch of salt and pepper. Serve and enjoy!
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