Pasta with Baby Kale, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, and Pesto

Last week, on Instagram, I posted an on-the-fly, super-quick pasta dish I made for lunch. It was cute, little, elbow pasta tossed with the last of a jar of pesto, a few handfuls of baby kale, toasted pumpkin seeds, and a shower of lemon zest. So good! So easy! A number of you requested the recipe, and I've included it down below. If you're blessed with the good fortune of having access to a Meyer lemon tree, by all means, use those. Otherwise, regular lemons will do the job just fine. Enjoy! -h

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Weeknight Pasta Ideas with Less Than Ten Ingredients

Pasta night is often the quickest way to get dinner on the table with minimal effort. The end of a long day? Pasta. Need something both adults and kid will eat? Pasta. That said, I feel like weeknight pasta preparations have evolved quite a bit in recent years with lots of creative ideas bubbling up. You see a lot of vegetable-centric pastas, and plenty of experimenting with different shapes, and ingredients. I thought I'd highlight a few weeknight pasta ideas, specifically ones with less than ten ingredients - actually, a few are in the eight ingredient range, not counting salt, pepper, and olive oil ;)

A couple tips / tricks. If a heavy cream sauce feels too indulgent (or if you're vegan), swap in homemade cashew (or almond) milk, it's a nice substitute without as much of the decadence. Experiment with some of the alternative pastas out there, I like to rotate between regular pasta, whole grain pasta, and chickpea pasta. All are great, and bring their own personality and nutritional profiles to the table.

1. Classic Stuffed Shells - (101 Cookbooks)
The best part about stuffed shells is that you can prepare them days ahead of time. These are topped with red sauce, and filled with ricotta. Crowd pleaser for kids & adults. Get the recipe here.

2. Weeknight Ponzu Pasta - (101 Cookbooks)
This is the pasta preparation to make when you want to keep it light, clean, and healthy. Lots of bright green broccoli, green beans, garlic, and pasta tossed with a simple ponzu sauce. Trade in roasted winter squash as the seasons shift from away from tomatoes. Get the recipe here.

3. Creamy Vegan Pesto Pasta & Cauliflower - (Green Kitchen Stories)
A beautiful, vegan riff on spaghetti al pesto. Bonus points for working in spinach and cauliflower for an extra healthy dinner. Get the recipe here.

4. Healthy Pumpkin Pasta with Spinach and Mushrooms - (Happy Kitchen Rocks)
Roasted winter squash is pureed into a vibrant sauce in this autumn beauty. With sage and walnuts. Get the recipe here.

5. An Excellent, One-pan, Protein-packed Power Pasta - (101 Cookbooks)
Another slightly unconventiona ine-panl pasta preparation made with crushed tomatoes, kale, and cooked lentils. Boost it with a thread of tahini, some lemon zest, and/or a kiss of saffron. Seven base ingredients and you're in business. Get the recipe here.

6. Rigatoni with Eggplant Puree - (Smitten Kitchen)
Yes to this. Roasted veg blitzed into an eggplant and tomato sauce for your rigatoni. Accented with mint (or basil), Parmesan, and toasted pine nuts. Get the recipe here.

7. Ditalini Risotto - (Bon Appétit)
I like to make this brilliant (yet simple!) Camille Becerra recipe with a flavorful veg broth. Love the idea of cooking the ditalini like you would risotto. Super clever! Get the recipe here.

8. Harissa Spaghettini - (101 Cookbooks)
I link to this whenever possible. Eight ingredients - most of which you definitely have on hand, between you and this flavor-punched tangle of kale-flecked goodness. That harissa in your refrigerator? This needs to be its destiny. Get the recipe here.

9. Simple Weeknight Pasta Sauce Recipes - (101 Cookbooks)
I've also done this round-up of great (and simple!) weeknight pasta sauce recipes. So, if you're not seeing anything here that seems quite right, hop on over for more ideas. Sauce Recipes.

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Toasted Pumpkin Seeds: Three Ways

Toasted pumpkin seeds are the tiny, edible trophies you get for carving pumpkins. That's just how it needs to be. Don't carve a pumpkin (or any winter squash for that matter), without toasting or roasting the seeds. The question is, what's the best technique? There is some debate about the best approach, but I've settled on a foolproof method over the years. It's super easy, and I'm going to share it here. Take note, there are a couple points of departure you'll see in my technique (compared to most). First! Some people boil the pumpkin seeds prior to toasting. No need. Second, I now season and spice the pumpkin seeds after baking, and I'll talk more about why.

Different pumpkins, different seeds: Pumpkins aren't the only winter squash with seeds. And seeds from different squashes have different sizes, shapes and textures. Play around with white "ghost" pumpkins, blue Hokkaido, butternut squash, and all the other beautiful winter squash varietals out there for a range of seeds. Also, if you're going to roast the squash as well, they're often much better tasting versus carving pumpkins.

Different sizes of seeds: Smaller seeds roast more quickly, so adjust your baking time (less). Aside from that, treat them the same as you would regular "carving" pumpkin seeds. Pictured below (top to bottom): delicata squash seeds, butternut squash seeds, carving pumpkin seeds

How to Clean & Make Pumpkin Seeds: Place a colander (or strainer) in a bowl filled with water. The seeds float, so this set-up makes separating the seeds from any stubborn pumpkin flesh much easier. Scoop the seeds from your pumpkin and transfer to the colander. Separate the seeds from any pumpkin flesh and pat dry with paper towels or a clean kitchen cloth.

The best technique: Bake the seeds after a good rinse, after drying well, and get as much water off the seeds as possible. I'm convinced the seeds steam less using this method, and crisp more.

When to season? I used to heavily season the pumpkin seeds prior to baking, but I find that if you bake with lots of spice coating the seeds, the spices tend to over bake or even burn. I do much or all of my spice addition post-bake now.

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How you Should be Baking with Figs

Figs are everywhere right now and they're great to bake with. Figs in focaccia, figs in quick breads, and figs in coffee cake - both fresh figs and dried are fair game! These are all the ways you could be baking during peak fig season.

1. Arabian Nights Pavlova - (John Whaite)
All the drama on one plate. Get the recipe here.

2. Cornbread Coffee Cake with Fresh Figs and Walnut Streusel - (Food 52)
You need this Vivian Howard cornbread masterpiece at yur next brunch. Get the recipe here.

3. Fig & Fennel Biscotti - (Sweet Paul)
Fennel seeds, cinnamon, hazelnuts, and dried figs. The perfect autumn biscotti. Get the recipe here.

4. Roasted Goat Cheese Stuffed with Lavender Thyme Honey - (Be Ravenous)
A simple, classic preparation with a lavender thyme twist. Can't go wrong with this. Get the recipe here.

5. Baked Rolled Barley with Figs, Berries, and Cardamom - (The Bojon Gourmet)
Love Alanna's take on my baked oatmeal. Also love that she bakes it in a cast-iron skillet! Brill. Get the recipe here.

6. Chocolate Banana Fig Bread - (Kitchen Confidante)
A banan bread with a chocolate and fig twist. Olive oil is a good alternative to the canola called for. Get the recipe here.

7. Focaccia with Figs - (Italian Food Forever)
You just know this is good. Get the recipe here.

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Fluffy Vanilla Nougat

To make great nougat, you really need to have a plan. You have to be legit focused. And(!), consider yourself warned, there are going to be a few minutes when you can't answer the front door, or even look at your phone - boiling hot sugar is no joke. I'm going to show you how to make a fluffy, cloud-like, vanilla nougat candy. Because if you're going to eat candy now and then, it might as well be homemade. You need to read through the recipe in its entirety before starting, so you have a sense of where you're headed. You'll also need a candy thermometer.

To the billowy, sweet, nougat base you can add all manner of flavors and spices. Or, stir in as many seeds, nuts, and dried fruit as the nougat will hold. The version you see pictured has vanilla bean, streaks of saffron, and a medley of nuts and seeds. The version in the video is slightly different. Part of the fun is experimenting with all the different ingredients you can add. A memorable favorite - lavender with loads of toasted white and black sesame seeds.

A few notes about this nougat recipe. A lot of nougat recipes use large amounts of corn syrup. The goal here was to get rid of as much corn syrup as possible, and preferably eliminate it altogether (I'm going to give variations with it, and without below). The version with a small splash of corn syrup is, quite honestly, less temperamental. But you can make nougat without it. What you see pictured here is a nougat made from honey, sugar, egg whites, and water as the base. Then there's vanilla bean, and lots of nuts and seeds beyond that.

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