Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Since we've had meat three nights in a I decided to make vegetarian pasta for supper tonight.

I started off by chopping up a white onion, a small red bell pepper, almost half of an organic zucchini, and a third of an Anaheim chili pepper.

I put those in to saute in a bit of canola oil and cracked black pepper.

As the veggies cooked I diced up four biggish organic mushrooms and tossed them in the frying pan as well.Then I added half a can of these white kidney beans and just smidge of the liquid from inside the can.

As all that simmered I got out my Tuscan herb blend that I buy from a local to me small business called Just Herbs, my pasta, and my olive oil.

When my lightly salted water began to boil I tossed in the pasta.

As the veggies continued to simmer and my pasta boiled I made my sauce.

I poured about half a cup of olive oil in my mixing bowl, the juice of one lemon (no seeds!), a table spoon and a half cracked black pepper, and two finely diced green onions. I mixed it all around together and waited for my pasta to get done.

I grated some Parmesan before I plated everything and I sprinkled it on top just before serving. And my finished dish looked like this:

Sometimes I'll toss in precooked salmon, walnuts, and or pine nuts. If I have them sometimes I'll top mine with a diced Serrano chili pepper or a jalapeno that has been de-seeded and de-ribbed.

I cook with very little salt so you may want to add salt to whatever recipe of mine you may want to try. Also, monkey around, pun intended, with whatever recipe I toss up here, that's how new recipes are made. If you make something new and wonderful, then let me know.