While sitting at the farmers markets I often find myself thinking about what we’ll have for dinner. Fortunately there is plenty of material for my imagination to work with. There’s the fresh basil and asparagus, the spring onions, zucchini and sweet peas. There’s cheese, pasta, mushrooms and more!
If you haven’t been by, these markets really are great places. People come to socialize, shop around, load up on farm fresh produce, grab a bite to eat, enjoy live music and support local business.
So on this particular weekend (5.24.14) I came away from the Gig Harbor Market with a great big bag of sweet peas, a bunch of walla walla onions, a couple of small and colorful zucchini, some red onion pasta, and of course a few prime shiitake mushrooms to enjoy.
What to do with my new found abundance?
Stir fry is my go to fresh veggie thing. With pasta as the base of the meal I decide to go for it. Envisioning a bed of fresh noodles with a sweet pea, shiitake, zucchini and sweet walla walla onion saute on top. One pad of garlic butter away from an early summers dream come true.
Good to get that pot of water boiling, I’m generous with the salt in the water, and today I took the stems from the shiitakes, and tossed them in with the water as it rose to a boil. This enables you to squeeze a bit more flavor from the mushrooms.
Stem/Chop/slice mushrooms, take the ends off of the peas, prep zucchini and onion.
Hot pan (cast iron skillet preferred) with about a tablespoon of butter melted. Add Mushrooms. Wait. Turn the mushrooms, let brown, like caramelizing an onion, if stirred too often that golden brown will be elusive. – 10 min
After ten minutes the shiitake are sufficiently browned for my liking, I add in the sweet peas and half of the chopped onion. Crank up the heat a bit. Seer the peas if possible, before adding the rest of the onion and zucchini.
A splash of white wine at this point makes for a nice flavor boost, turn heat down, cover, and let stand for a couple of minutes to finish.
Pasta was in for 10 minutes and was added to the water just after the sweet peas and onion were added to the pan.
Drain noodles, added a dash of oil to keep from sticking, and serve!
