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Katie at the Kitchen Door

Globally-inspired, seasonal recipes

2 July 28, 2012 Food

Garden: Spaghetti with Summer Squash and Tomatoes

I’ve been waiting for this meal for a long time.  Since February, to be exact, from the moment I put the first seed in the first pot to sit in my bedroom window absorbing the weak winter sun.  And by this meal, I don’t mean this dish exactly – I just mean the first meal where all of the produce (well, except the garlic, we don’t get to plant that until September) could be fresh-picked from the garden, moments before preparing it.  Accomplishing this was just as satisfying (and delicious) as I thought it would be.

The garden has been far more successful than I expected.  Our random assortment of pots with store-bought dirt have turned into a lush array of greenery, and I’m so happy about it.  The highest tendrils of the watermelon are beyond arm’s reach, the cucumbers have climbed all the way up the porch and threaten to overrun the grapes, the tomatoes (started from seed!) are turning red one at a time, and the kale finally battled off the last of the cabbage moths and could provide at least 5 batches of my favorite kale soup.  Even the lemon tree has made a comeback and is covered in new leaves (!) after losing almost all of them this winter.  (This lemon tree seriously toys with my emotions.  After all my painstaking work nursing it back to health from the mealybugs, it rewarded me with over a hundred blossoms – not a single one of which managed to turn into a lemon larger than a quarter before shriveling up and falling off the tree.  No lemons this winter – any citrus experts out there have advice for me?)

This is less a recipe than a suggestion for how to use whatever’s good in your garden now.  The basic process is this: gently cook your vegetables until they’re crisp tender, then toss with pasta, or rice, or leave them by themselves.  Smother the veggies with herbs, heated only for a moment or two just to release their flavor.  Then dress the dish – I went the luxurious route, with cream and cheese, but a drizzle of good olive oil and a sprinkling of salt would have an equally wonderful effect.  Maybe pour yourself a glass of white wine, and, if it’s a nice night, take your dinner out to the garden and enjoy all the goodness summer has to offer.  It can’t be beat.

I can’t wait to share more garden-inspired recipes soon!  Especially when the watermelons (and the figs, and the grapes) are ready.  Stay tuned.  And enjoy your weekend!

Creamy Spaghetti with Summer Squash and Tomatoes

Serves 4-6

  • 1 lb. spaghetti
  • 3 TBS butter
  • 2 small summer squash, thinly sliced
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 20-30 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1/3 c. packed fresh parsley, thinly sliced
  • 1/3 c. packed fresh basil, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 c. heavy cream
  • 1/3 – 1/2 c. packed grated parmesan
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • sea salt
  • black pepper
  1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil.
  2. Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until melted.  Add the sliced squash and cook until tender and beginning to turn golden brown, about 7-10 minutes, flipping with a spatula once or twice over this time period.  Add the minced garlic and cook for 2 minutes longer, until garlic is very fragrant but not browned.  Add cherry tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes more, stirring.
  3. Add the spaghetti to boiling water at about this point.  Cook according to package directions.  In an ideal world, you want the sauce to be ready as the same time as the pasta, but life doesn’t always work out like that.  If your pasta is done first, rinse with cold water or drizzle with olive oil to prevent it from sticking.
  4. Lower the heat on the sauce and cook vegetables for 2-3 more minutes, stirring.  Add cream, parsley, and basil to vegetables, and cook, simmering gently, for 2 minutes.  Turn off heat, and stir in lemon juice and parmesan cheese.  Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary.
  5. If your spaghetti is just finishing, add a few TBS of the pasta cooking water to the sauce, then drain the spaghetti and immediately toss with the sauce.  If your spaghetti has been finished for a while, add as much of the spaghetti as will fit to the saucepan and heat over low heat for 2 minutes, tossing spaghetti with sauce.  When spaghetti is just heated, add it all back to the pot to mix thoroughly.  (The goal here is to get the sauce to adhere to the spaghetti and both to be hot when served).
  6. Serve hot with additional grated parmesan.

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Categories: Food Tags: basil, cream, herb, parmesan, pasta, produce, spaghetti, squash, tomato, vegetable

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Comments

  1. Amy says

    July 28, 2012 at 7:51 am

    Wow this looks DELICIOUS! Congratulations on your garden, nothing beats using your own produce I’m sure! Oh and gorgeous photos too! :) x

    Reply
    • katieatthekitchendoor says

      July 28, 2012 at 9:33 am

      Thanks Amy! I think the fact that I grew it might make it taste better to me…

      Reply
  2. Ranjani says

    July 28, 2012 at 2:49 pm

    Wow – congrats on such a successful garden! I have grown cherry tomatoes and chile peppers in the past, but haven’t gotten more ambitious than that.

    Reply
  3. glitzgirlzglamourguide says

    July 28, 2012 at 3:45 pm

    Wow, looks so fresh and summery! pretty colorful dish :)
    http://www.glitzgirlzglamourguide.com

    Reply
  4. Angie@Angie's Recipes says

    July 29, 2012 at 1:54 am

    This is so fresh and summery!

    Reply
  5. As A Verb says

    July 29, 2012 at 11:23 am

    This is a perfect summer pasta, I cannot wait to try it. Envious of your garden!

    Reply
  6. Eileen says

    July 29, 2012 at 9:15 pm

    Isn’t growing your own food satisfying? That pasta is such a great way to highlight all the freshest & best summer veg. Love it!

    Reply
  7. Mallory says

    July 30, 2012 at 8:33 am

    Your garden is impressive! You are right, there is a lot of satisfaction in growing produce, harvesting, and then preparing a dish…And there is nothing better than fresh veggies and pasta!

    Reply
  8. Dana Kuritzkes says

    August 1, 2012 at 1:10 am

    Hi Katie,

    I’m fairly new to WordPress and stumbled across your blog. I saw that under your Connect section, you were able to align your widgets horizontally- could you tell me how you did this? My blog has the same theme as yours, so I thought maybe you could help me. Thanks much!

    Reply
    • katieatthekitchendoor says

      August 1, 2012 at 5:13 am

      Hi Dana, thanks for your note. Not sure if I can help (my html experience pretty much consists of googling what I need to do each time) but I can try! My widget codes are all contained within the same sentence, with no breaks or paragraphs between them. WordPress sometimes automatically adds paragraphs, so you have to go in to the html and delete the “br”s, as well as uncheck “automatically add paragraphs.” I would play around with the code a little bit until you have what you want!

      Reply
  9. hendribs2000 says

    August 6, 2012 at 2:40 pm

    Reblogged this on Hendribs2000's Blog.

    Reply
  10. Tammie Dedic says

    September 5, 2018 at 7:07 pm

    I made this tonight for supper. Everyone asked for seconds. I used whole wheat pasta, zucchini and grape tomatoes, dried herbs and fat free half and half to cut calories. Substituting dried herbs requires 1/3 the amount as the recipe called for. We will make this again! Yum

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Health Lesson Learned | Bowie Texas says:
    September 26, 2012 at 8:15 am

    […] Garden: Spaghetti with Summer Squash and Tomatoes […]

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