Friday, July 27, 2012

Healthy food at home: giving whole wheat pasta a second chance

For a vegetarian, I have a strange aversion to "healthy" recipes. I think, what a nice idea, but will it taste bland, unappetizing? In most instances I'd say I eat pretty healthy food on the regular but for some reason I often assume the healthy stuff will taste better if someone else has made it. Sometimes this is true, particularly for some of the textured veggie protein etc. that I am not yet familiar with how to season/prepare nicely, but you know what, a majority of the food I make is tasty, dammit, and I should have more faith in making "healthy" recipes that taste just as good.

I've also long had an aversion to whole wheat or multigrain pasta, coming to the premature conclusion that I'd rather have regular pasta but just eat less of it. I may have been too hasty in this decision. It really isn't so bad when you flavor it properly. Case in point, a linguine with cherry tomato and white wine recipe I found on Earth 911's website. I made this on Monday, using most of the same ingredients (except I switched oregano for parsley) and I'm still eating from the batch today (and they'll probably still be leftovers for tomorrow!) Suprisingly this simple concotion of whole wheat linguine, tomatoes, asparagus and parmesan cheese even tastes good when reheated in the microwave (and I hate warming up pasta in the microwave). The asparagus is pleasingly crunchy and the sauce feels flavorful without being heavy. I would definitely add this dish to my summer kitchen repertoire.

Sidenote: I took a knife skills class at Brooklyn Kitchen last night which taught me all the things I've been doing wrong and also inspired me to start making my own veggie stock. I'm hoping this whole cooking-my-own healthy-stuff kick is something that'll last.