Pasta in White Wine Sauce

One of the surprising things that has popped up, in my clear-the-pantry mode, is how much pasta I have acquired and not used. And most of it is from Pappardelle's pasta. The company is based out of Colorado, but one of the vendors at the North Grand Farmers' Market sells them on the regular. I think I bought 2-3 packets of pasta from them every week--my sister is fond of their gluten-free orzo, so I usually picked up some for her, too. BUT NOW I HAVE SO MUCH. Plus random pasta I've picked up at Trader Joe's. (Side note: I've been consciously boycotting Barilla, but it looks like they've turned things around? Well, this will make grocery shopping much easier, I suppose.) Pasta is generally pretty cheap, it's shelf-stable, and easily pairs up with most proteins and vegetables.



So anyway! Given what I had left from my farmers' market haul, I decided to make pasta using this white wine cream sauce. The recipe is hosted by PETA, and thus is tailored for vegans. I did not keep things vegan--I used butter, and added parmesan at the end.

I started off sauteeing the rest of my pearl oyster mushrooms, and then mixing in the mizuna. After they were done, I put them in a dish and aside, though I could have cooked the mushrooms with the onions, and then cooked the mizuna in place of spinach (as detailed by the recipe), but I felt that might be too many things in the pan while I was making the sauce, so.







After the mizuna was fully mixed in, I added a bit of water and then covered the pan to speed up the greens' wilting. I think I left them there for about five minutes before un-panning them.



Then I boiled the pasta in well-salted water for about eight minutes. These could have gone concurrently on the stove, if I wanted to be time-efficient. After draining the pasta, I put it aside with the mizuna and greens.



And the final step: the sauce itself! I chopped a whole small onion, sauteed it, then chopped up my last stalk of green garlic and tossed that in. This is WAY more onion than the recipe calls for, but I figured my onion was pretty small. Also, I used to HATE onions, but somehow I've come around to having them in food I cook, as long as they have extra time to almost-caramelize in the pan when I cook. Then, a half cup of white wine (fairly dry) and a half cup of water, and simmer for ten minutes.



Then the roux! The recipe just called for a tablespoon of margarine (I used butter) and a tablespoon of flour. Since the pan had some extra liquid, I didn't experience the STIR QUICKLY OMG I usually feel with roux.



Then I mixed in the mushrooms and mizuna, and then the pasta. YEAH.





I didn't add any additional salt or pepper, though the recipe called for it. Since I always add a ton of Parmesan, I figured the pasta would have salt enough. (Same deal if you typically add stuff like, say, prosciutto or sun-dried tomatoes. Are they already salted? Adjust cooking accordingly.) In any case, this recipe might feel a bit fiddly, what with all the stages it goes through, but once you've done it a couple of times, it's pretty comfortably predictable.