Using Up Garden Veggies

After pulling in another dozen tomatoes from the garden this weekend, I find myself with an abundance of veggies once again. In looking at my haul from last weekend until today, I have potatoes, onions, and tomatoes to use up pretty quickly as they won't keep forever. Yes, I could freeze them or use them in sauces as I've been doing, but I needed something new to try out that would incorporate some of the potatoes. Using my search engine skills and narrowing down my options, I found something that brings together tomatoes, onion, and potatoes with something else I use regularly in my kitchen: pasta! After making this dish tonight, let me just say that a new comfort food is now on my menu!

The dish shown above is an Italian soup called "pasta e patate" which, quite literally, translates to "pasta and potatoes". It comes from an Italian cooking style called cucina povera - "poor kitchen" - where frugal cooking combines the idea of not wasting any food and using anything available in the kitchen that can made into an ingredient. Some may call this "peasant cooking" based on the idea of inexpensive ingredients combined with delicious flavours, but I can honestly say that I'd happily be a peasant with this dish being served!

Similar in its ingredient simplicity as pasta puttanesca, pasta e patate doesn't use anything that one can't find at a local grocery store or in one's freezer outside of a couple of things. If I lived in Italy, I'd almost assuredly have these things, but there were a few things I needed to pick up on the way home to make this dish complete. It took me just under an hour to prep, cook, and serve this dish, so it's something that one can make after work without dirtying a lot of dishes as well!

Being that I'm not Italian, I found this recipe on the BBC website thanks to Giulia Scarpaleggia, a Tuscan food writer, author, and cooking class teacher. She runs the Juls' Kitchen website where she has loads more great dishes that are easy to make that won't break the budget.

"My grandma Marcella learned to cook pasta with potatoes from my Aunt Valeria, who was from Basilicata, in the south of Italy," Scarpaleggia explained. "From that day of many, many years ago, she developed her own recipe, revised according to our ingredients, to her personal taste and cooking style. For example, instead of caciocavallo, a hard and sharp-flavoured, pear-shaped cheese from the south of Italy, we use grated Parmigiano Reggiano and also the leftover crusts of Parmigiano, cut into cubes. Once you boil them for a while, they become soft and chewy, giving an intense flavour to the broth".

In knowing at least one of the ingredients, you're likely thinking, "Get to the recipe, Teebz," so I will. Here is the pasta e patate recipe shared by Giulia Scarpaleggia on the BBC website.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1 white onion, minced
• 1 celery stalk, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Salt for flavouring
• 1-and-1/4 lbs potatoes, cut into 0.5-inch cubes
• 2oz pancetta, diced
• 4 cups hot water, lightly salted
• 4 tomatoes, diced
• 1 Parmigiano-Reggiano rind, 2-by-1 inches in size
• 2 cups pasta mista*, ditali, or other short, dried pasta
• 1-and-1/2 oz aged provolone or Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated
• 5oz young provolone, cubed
• freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Pour the olive oil into a large pot set over low heat. Add the onion, celery, garlic and a generous pinch of salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft (about 10 minutes).
2. Add the potatoes and pancetta, stir, and cook for about 5 minutes, taking care not to brown the potatoes. Pour in 2 cups of the hot water (it should be enough to cover the potatoes), add the tomatoes and Parmigiano-Reggiano rind, and cook over medium heat for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until you can easily mash the potatoes against the sides of the pot with a wooden spoon.
3. Pour in the remaining 2 cups of hot water, add the pasta, and stir thoroughly. Bring to a simmer and cook until the soup has thickened and the pasta is al dente (about 10 minutes).
4. Remove the pot from the heat, add both cheeses and stir energetically to melt them. Taste and adjust the seasoning with additional salt and with pepper.
5. Ladle the soup into warmed bowls, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with pepper and serve. The Parmigiano-Reggiano rind can be cut into small pieces and added to the bowls. Any leftover soup can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. Reheat gently over low heat, adding a bit of water to thin.

Notes

Pasta mista is a mixture of leftover pasta cuts from factories to prevent any waste. There are brands that sell "pasta mista" as way to maximize profits, but any smaller-sized pasta will do. For example, I used ditali and small shells in my creation, but macaroni, rotini, or other pasta may be used depending on what you have available.

They key in this mixture is the saltiness from the cheeses and the meat used in the dish combined with the salt in the boiling water added to the dish to cook the pasta. You shouldn't need to add much salt at the end, but any meat could honestly be used in this dish. Just make sure to adjust the salt content to your liking if you substitute the pancetta for something like chicken.

As Chef Scarpaleggia describes in the BBC article, the cheese, when melted, turns this tomato-based dish into a wonderfully creamy dish whose liquid is absorbed by the pasta. While you'll technically have a soup-like mixture to start, the heat from cooking combined with the pasta's ability to absorb some of the liquid will turn this into a "dense, creamy and well mixed" pasta stew, if you will, thanks to that provolone that was stirred in at the end. Expect your spoon to need to be cleaned as you eat as the cheese sticks to it!

When people talk about food that clings to your ribs, this version of pasta e patate certainly will do that. It's loaded with carbohydrates so it would make for a great meal before some winter exercising, but it's heartiness will remind you that it's still comfort food that will warm the insides. Besides tasting great, you may only need a bowl of this recipe to fill you up. I know that's all it took for me!

I'm back to hockey on HBIC tomorrow, but, if you need to use up some veggies that are fairly common in North American kitchens, this recipe is for you. I may even make another batch later this week and freeze it for winter meals. With how easy it is to make, this pasta e patate recipe will be used for years to come in my kitchen! Thanks for a great meal, Chef Scarpaleggia!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!