Pasta Primavera

As usual, the first day of the New Year at casa de Pettit was couch potato central. A Monk marathon was on TV, so I got to catch up on a lot of old Monk shows that I previously slept through.
For dinner, I fixed enchiladas with mushrooms, black olives and onions. Good stuff. As I fully anticipated, Jackie demanded a meat product, so I took the rest of the frozen turkey left over from Thanksgiving and prepared some with turkey, some without; everyone was happy.
Today, another recipe from the web: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/No-Cream-Pasta-Primavera/Detail.aspx


No-Cream Pasta Primavera
"Spring veggies benefit from a quick roasting in olive oil and herbs before being tossed with penne. No cream here - just the fresh flavors of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lemon. A beautiful dish."
INGREDIENTS:
1 (12 ounce) package penne pasta
1 yellow squash, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 carrot, julienned
1/2 red bell pepper, julienned
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1 cup fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
5 spears asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 cup olive oil, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add penne pasta and cook for 10 to 12 minutes or until al dente; drain.
3. In a bowl, toss squash, zucchini, carrot, red bell pepper, tomatoes, green beans, and asparagus with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and Italian seasoning. Arrange vegetables on the baking sheet, and roast 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until tender.
4. Heat remaining olive oil and butter in a large skillet. Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook until tender. Mix in cooked pasta, lemon zest, basil, parsley, and balsamic vinegar. Gently toss and cook until heated through. Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl. Toss with roasted vegetables and sprinkle with Romano cheese to serve.

A lot of the commentors (commenters? sp?) added and deleted ingredients to come up with their own versions - I think I'll add the toasted pine nuts, because I love the toasted pine nuts.


Gram's Refrigerator rolls

Also, seems like Gram's bread rolls would make a natural accompaniment. My grandmother was part of our family household when I grew up - it was like having three parents, one of whom baked six loaves of bread every weekend, and made a double batch of these rolls at Christmas and Thanksgiving. I think they were called refrigerator rolls because she would make the dough and stick it in the fridge until dinner time, roll them out for crescent rolls, let them rise for awhile and bake them when the oven was available. For crescent rolls, she would roll out a 9 or 10 inch circle, cut into pie shape pieces, then roll each piece into the middle to form the crescent shapes. I would help her, and was given the dough scraps to roll into a cinnamon-sugar mix to make my own treats.

Ingredients
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup milk, scalded
1/3 cup melted shortening, or 6 tbsp butter
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsps salt
1 beaten egg
5 cups flour

1. Soften dry yeast in warm water (110 deg). Add 1 tsp sugar to yeast mixture. Add milk, cooled to lukewarm, shortening, 3/4 cup sugar and salt.
2. Add eggs, beat well. Add flour to make soft dough; let stand ten minutes; knead on lightly floured surface til smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl, turning once to grease surface, and cover. Store in refrigerator.
3. Shape rolls about two hours before serving, let rise til double in bulk. Bake in hot oven, 15 to 20 minutes.

My bread machine version:
1. Put the milk and the butter in a microwaveable bowl and zap it til the butter is melted.
2. Pour the milk into the bread pan along with the water, sugar and salt. Let it cool a bit and add the egg.
3. Add about 4 cups of flour, then the yeast on the top of the flour. Turn the breadmaker to dough setting. As it begins to knead, put in additional flour (may not need all five cups).
4. When the dough cycle is finished, I usually make parkerhouse rolls (no rolling out required). Roll out little dough balls in my hand, placing three into each cup of a cupcake pan, then let them rise while covered.
5. I cook at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. She wrote down 450 degrees, but many black-bottomed rolls later, I've decided this is a typo.