3 quick Summer Pasta recipes – outdoor cooking adventures
When it comes to pasta, the italians do it best. There are so many varieties to make it’s impossible to get tired. I love pasta, and pasta is perhaps the most common food you would eat when you are in the backcountry.
Why?
It’s made in 3 steps. Boil water, Add pasta, Make the sauce, voila!
Try one of these 3 recipes that comes along our trips.
Power Summer Spaghetti with Radicchio
Serves 2
It’s more common to eat Radicchio as a salad, instead of cooking it. The red colour of the italian vegetable hints it’s bitterness – it’s a relative to chicory. It’s a pleasant combination of bitter and sweet and the secret is, when radicchio gets cooked, it gets less bitter! Put some summer in it with slices of orange (not in the pix) and fresh Thym herbs from the wild. What I love is this bitter-sweet, nutty combination. Power food!
Ingredients:
- Half a Radicchio (sliced)
- 100 g Raisin
- 1 Orange, sliced (optional)
- 50 Pine nuts or walnuts alternatively
- 1-3 cloves Garlic (chopped)
- 1 onion (chopped)
- grated parmesan cheese
- Olive oil /Butter
- 250 g Spaghetti
Method:
- While boiling the salted water for your spaghetti, clean the radicchio, slice onions and chop garlic.
- Roast pine nuts till light brown. This brings the aroma of the nuts out. Put aside.
- Add the spaghetti to the boiling water and cook this till “Al dente” (still bitey).
- Brown the onions, garlic and the sliced radicchio. Add raisins and the pine nuts. Add a dash of wine to smoothen the sauce. Add salt & pepper to taste.
- In the mean time, the spaghetti should be ready by now. Drain the water and pour the noodles into the pan. Mix. Serve hot garnished with parmesan cheese (for more richness and big hunger) or with slices of oranges (on hot days for more summer freshness).
Pasta classico aglio olio peperoncino
The easiest, quickest way of killing your hunger: with a dash of olive oil from the italian region, salt, pepper and pepperoni . Top it off with a few slices of garlic and you’re done. I had a lot of fun with my new Tundra pan from Trangria. A hard anodized ultra light pan that is non stick and non scratch resistant as well. It wasn’t only scratch resistant, the water boils quickly too. Good for hungry stomachs! Quick and easy to clean!
With a touch of grated parmesan cheese on top, this recipe makes an easy, no fuss, mountaineer foodie without having to raid the salsa cans.
Ingredients:
- Spaghetti pasta 250 g (feeds 2)
- Water to boil
- 2 cloves garlic
- olive oil
- salt pepper to taste
- basil leaves (optional)
- grated Parmesan cheese
- Pepperoncino (optional)
Method:
- Heat up your stove, bring the water to boil
- Add salt
- Cook the pasta, drain the water
- Peel and then crush the garlic cloves
- Together with some Olive oil, mix everything together.
- Garnish with grated parmesan.
One pot hot italian luganega salsa
Gnochetti are pretty little pasta shells and spoons out the sauce best in the cup shaped rilled form. Originally, they come from Sardenia. This one pot meal is easy to make. First make the sauce, then the pasta in the same pot.
Ingredients
-
- 300g Sardinian gnocchetti or Penne
- salt
- 300 ml water with vegetable broth
- For the sauce
-
- 6 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 300g fresh Italian sausage (luganega), meat removed from the skin, crumbled
- 1 small packet dried porcini, soaked in hot water 30 mins, then chopped (keep the liquid)
- dash dry white wine
- 1 can tomatos
- salt and pepper, to taste
Preparation method
- Brown the onions till soft
- Add garlic and cook for another minute before adding the sausage and porcini.
- Allow to brown, stirring, then pour in the wine and the tomato pulp.
- Leave to cook over a very low heat for about 10 mins.
- Add a little of the mushroom liquid.
- Add 300 ml water and vegetable broth
Pasta:
- Add in 250g pasta
- cover lid and simmer softly for another 10 mins.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
Are you all hot for more pasta? Check out my other pasta recipes here.
[Disclosure: Thanks to Bergfreunde, I have been able to upgrade some of my my pots to test out new recipes. As always, all thoughts and recipes are my own. ]
