Ingredients, Ingredients, Ingredients

Some of my regular readers are a little obsessed with ingredients when it comes to posts about food I make in my own kitchen. Tonight I threw together a little Italian dinner with some ingredients from Trader Giotto's.



To start, I made a salad of white beans, tuna, black olives and artichoke hearts (non-marinated). I tossed all this in a little balsamic vinegar and white truffle oil (thanks to Carrie for this treat), then served over a cold bed of arugula from the bagged salad section at TJ's.

While that was chilling, I put a couple tablespoon of olive oil, generous amounts of garlic, onion and red chili pepper flakes to saute adding heirloom cherry tomatoes from Joe's produce section to sweat and create a fresh tomato sauce.

As the tomatoes sweat, they soften to squishability and the liquid combines with the olive oil to make a light pasta sauce.

As the pasta finishes cooking, I throw in a defrosted bag of those crazy Argentinian red shrimp...

All of this is well and good, however the star of the show tonight is the pasta. Lemon and pepper pappardelle, dried from TJ's pasta aisle. I wanted something with thick ribbons...but I also wanted fresh. The only fresh pasta Trader Giotto's sells is ravioli and I didn't want anything that heavy. This looked fun so I threw caution to the wind.



This pasta was flippin' fantastic. Delicioso. Next time I am at TJ's I am going to buy a few more packets, and have it on hand to throw together with garlic, olive oil and just a touch of Parmesan. It was wonderful with the shrimp sauce and really pulled the dish together. But it would be equally wonderful with a less complicated sauce...something that allows the palate to focus on the joy of the lemon peppery ribbons of paste!