Casarecce with Asparagus and Peas

Tender pasta and a light, lemony sauce make this dish an easy way to eat your green veggies.

Asparagus, spinach, and sweet peas steal the show in this healthy and tasty pasta dish.

We’re at the halfway mark for spring, with the first day of summer not that far off in the distance. Having left the winter of our discontent for a new season that included life-saving vaccines for millions of people, I’m emerging from my isolation cocoon. More outdoor activities are again available—even if it’s simply visiting a park—and I feel like lightening up. You know that great song from The Wiz, “Brand New Day?” Anybody else find themselves singing that with some regularity?

Along those lines, I’ve tried to lighten up in the kitchen, too. Yes, the comforting casseroles, stews, and heavy soups from winter hit the target (and tipped the scales, I’m afraid), but it’s time for a change. Happily, Mother Nature is cooperating fully, as locally grown vegetables and fruit are starting to come into season. Next month, many farmers’ markets will be open for business, which make it easier to incorporate seasonal produce into our diets.

Which is why I am loving this recipe: Casarecce with Asparagus and Peas. There’s a lot of green veggies in this dish: asparagus, peas, spinach, and green onions. Fresh parsley provides the crowning touch. And instead of a heavy pasta sauce, it’s just lemon, olive oil, and a little bit of starchy pasta water.

For the final selling point: it’s quick to the table! So if you need to dash off before the sun goes down to walk the dog or catch an outdoor movie or concert, dinner at home will not be a problem. (The leftovers were good, too.)

To make this dish, you’ll need:

• asparagus

• frozen peas

• fresh baby spinach

• fresh flat leaf parsley

• green onion

• garlic

• zest and juice of one lemon

• Parmesan cheese

• pasta

Assemble ingredients and prep vegetables before you start cooking this quick pasta dish.

I used Casarecce (ka-sa-RAY-chee), a pasta that originated in Sicily, but you easily could swap out for orecchiette or any other that would hold a sauce well. What I liked about the Casarecce is its oblong shape with a ridge that runs down the middle. These pasta twists appear to be rolled up on themselves, making it easy to hold a light sauce like the one in this dish.

If you have lemon pepper in your pantry (and if you don’t, you really should buy some), swap that out for plain black pepper. It’s a subtle, but nice, finishing touch.

Because this recipe comes together so quickly (under 15 minutes), it’s important to have everything prepped before you start cooking. Start with the asparagus.

Wash the asparagus under a cold tap. The bottom of the spears are woody; hold a spear at each end and bend the bottom so it naturally snaps off the tough part. I like to trim off the bottom evenly, too. The head of the spear should be tight, not mushy. This is a personal preference thing, but I also peel the spears to help the cooking process along. And it looks better visually.

Peel the garlic before slicing. The paper-like outer skins should fall away easily while removing the clove. Some people gently bash the cloves with the flat side of a knife, but I try to cut off each end and then peel the remaining skin.

Zest the lemon before juicing, and use all of the parsley in the dish, including tender stems.

Always zest a lemon before juicing. Some cooks can squeeze a lemon half and catch seeds, but those slippery little buggers always get into my pans, so I prefer a juicer.

Your pasta water can be working up to the boil while prepping the vegetables. You’re going to drop the asparagus into the pan at about the same time the pasta goes in the pot. After that, this recipe flies by very quickly, leaving perfectly cooked pasta and crisp-tender vegetables.

The peas can be used frozen. I also run bagged greens, like the baby spinach, under running water to clean prior to use.

Finally, a brief word about parsley; don’t toss the stems. They are sweet and crunchy and completely delicious, so while your sauce is reducing in the pan, chop the parsley—stems and leaves—and toss the stems into your skillet. The leaves provide garnish at the end.

There is a variety of texture and flavor to this recipe. The pasta obviously has a satisfying chew (I mean, who doesn’t love a noodle), the asparagus retains some fresh crunch. The peas are sweet, and the lemon gives just enough acidity to the dish. Parmesan cheese and just a drizzle of olive oil at the end make the light, yet silky sauce.

All this for about 350 calories per serving. You can keep it a vegetarian dish or add grilled chicken or shrimp, but that also increases the calorie count, but it still would come in just around 500 calories.

Give this a try and let me know what you think! I’m going to bet you’ll agree this is a painless and delicious way to eat

Best Ever Gooey Butter Cake

Over several years, home baker Barbara Anderson has perfected this St. Louis classic, gooey butter cake.

Barb Anderson’s divine gooey butter cake begins with a white cake mix and ends with a bite of a rich, decadent baked treat. (Photo courtesy Barb Anderson)

Details are important to Barbara Anderson. As an accomplished home cook who raised two sons with her husband, Dave, while working for the Boeing Company, attention to detail became a necessary life skill. Fortunately, growing up in a family of six in south St. Louis, Missouri, Barb saw firsthand what went into running a large household.

“Mom was always in the kitchen,” Barb said. “She was a great cook and she had me help her. (I) started by peeling potatoes and watching her cook. We never had a dishwasher––that was me, or I was the dish dryer.”

After she married (the couple lives in St. Charles, Missouri), she had to feed “two hungry sons,” so Barb’s planning prowess naturally kicked in.

“I traveled a lot with my job and I would try to at least grill some meats so that Dave and the boys would have access to decent food when I was gone,” she said.

It’s easy to see how baking, which requires precision and detail work, would be this cook’s favorite thing.

“I love making cakes and cookies with the goal of giving them away. When I was working, I’d make cakes and desserts for my team. For retirement, they gave me a cake carrier that says ‘Cake Boss,’” she said.

“My team at Boeing was responsible for planning customer events—dinners, rollouts, ribbon cuttings, and air and trade shows. So naturally, most of them were foodies who loved to cook,” Barb said, adding there was a woman on her team who was an excellent baker.

“One day, she brought in her gooey butter and I fell in love. The filling was like a pudding and the crust was soft and golden brown, not at all like the commercially made gooey butter cakes that have a harder gel middle and tougher crusts,” Barb said.

Barb Anderson’s Best Ever Gooey Butter Cake. (Barb Anderson photo)

Her team member shared her recipe and secrets, and Barb was determined to perfect her own gooey butter cake, which has been a St. Louis delicacy since the 1940s.

“I don’t know whether I’ve reached the same plateau as she has, but everyone raves about this cake. It’s one of my go-to recipes” Barb said.

I’ve eaten gooey butter cakes all my life (being born and raised in St. Louis, like Barb), and I can honestly say her cake is the best I’ve had. It’s better than most commercially made gooey butters and, while certainly sweet, it is balanced. If you’ve had gooey butter cake in the past but didn’t especially care for it, give her recipe a try.

Barb’s gooey butter cake starts with a boxed cake mix that she modifies with an extender recipe that’s listed below. (Barb Anderson photo)

Barb said her cake is a modified version of Paula Deen’s recipe. She said the most important thing is to bake the cake at 325 degrees; this reduced temperature (from the normal 350 degrees) protects the crust from getting tough, but allows the middle to cook to gooey perfection.

“Another secret to the gooey butter (and any doctored cake mix for that matter) is to add a cake extender,” Barb said. “I started doing this few years ago, after doing some reading on the internet, because I was frustrated at how thin my box cake layers seemed.”

Three-Ounce Cake Mix Extender

(Adapted from the Better Homes & Gardens new cookbook. This is for white or yellow cake recipes.) This makes six portions, which Barb keeps, proportioned in three-ounce amounts, in small jam jars.

1½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

Directions: Whisk all ingredients together and store in a clean jar. Add three ounces to a 15¼-ounce cake mix.

(Note: For chocolate cake mixes, substitute approximately 25 percent (approximately 3 ounces) of flour with cocoa powder.

“I’ve become a big fan of doctoring cake mixes. It’s baking because you add a lot of your own ingredients but the results are so much more consistent,” she said.

In addition, she swaps two 8-inch or 9-inch pans for the traditional 9-by-13-inch pan when baking her gooey butter cakes. This allows for more crust in each cake and makes it easier for her to gift the second cake to friends and family. Barb said she always has a supply of foil pans from The Dollar Tree in her pantry, as well as all the ingredients for her signature cake.

“I put the new foil pans inside a set of old foil pans that I keep on hand. The thicker pan is stronger and bakes more easily. Once it’s cool, I separate the pans and keep the old set for another batch.” she said.

There’s that attention to detail again. And buying the one-pound box of powdered sugar at The Dollar Tree means less measuring; open the box, cut, and dump. “So much easier,” she said, adding most of her baking ingredients comes from either The Dollar Tree or Aldi’s.

I think this home cook’s straightforward and practical kitchen philosophy translates to other areas of her life. I’ve a longstanding friendship with Barb (we met in college). Maybe it’s because our families were “south side Germans,” working-class people who never skimped on generous hospitality, but I’ve always had a deep connection with her. We grew up with families who valued a good meal and loved sharing their food.

“My family gatherings always revolved around food. Barbecues with beer in the sauce during the summer, Christmas with my aunt’s bourbon balls and my mom’s Hungarian Horns,” she said. “Our family has a strong German heritage so there was lots of ‘pickled’ food and potatoes in every style.”

Her favorite meal featured her mom’s fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, and sweet sour green beans.

“Mom was always worried she would not have enough food. So when we’d have family over, she’d always tell us not to eat the mashed potatoes and save them for others. Of course, we ignored her! But it was her way of teaching us how to put others first,” she said.

And now that Barb and Dave are “empty nesters,” she said her biggest challenge as a cook is making a variety of food for two people without a lot of leftovers.

“I rarely cook dinner for us, maybe once a week or even less. It’s hard to cook for just two people and we have opposite tastes. But I love to host for family and friends for dinner or lunch; gives me a chance to experiment,” she said.

To new cooks, Barb’s recommendation is to invest in good equipment.

“And don’t put your pans and mixing bowls in the dishwasher. I hand wash all my cake and cookie sheet pans and my mixer’s bowl. The dishwasher can discolor the metal pans and pit the bowls,” she said.

It’s doubtful that the original German bakery employee on the south side of St. Louis knew their mistake in the kitchen would result in a cake that would become a favorite with generations of St. Louisans. Similarly, Barb Anderson may never knew how much happiness her gooey butter cakes have brought to folks over the years, but every bite reflects the love and care she pours into each one of them. And boy, are we grateful for that.

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Delicious Gooey Butter Cake Cookies are ready in a snap. Similar to the traditional cake but just a tad less sweet, they are perfect when you want a little treat.

Pull Apart Piggies

Tiny pigs in a blanket baked in a springform pan make a fun pull apart appetizer.

Pigs in a blanket bake in a springform pan for a fun appetizer that's also easy to put together.

I never met a hot dog I didn’t like. This is probably driven by a number of factors, such as my German heritage and fondness for most sausages. Also, hot dogs have pleasant memory triggers for me, including attending baseball games with family and friends, picnics, backyard barbecues, especially those enjoyed as a child.

It’s also a belief of mine that food doesn’t have to be serious all the time. Once in a while it’s fine to make something that’s just a bit naughty or silly. So, for National Pigs in a Blanket Day (April 24)—or any day you need a fun dish most people will like—this recipe works beautifully.

Earlier this year, my Banana and Chocolate Chip Monkey Bread (https://www.threewomeninthekitchen.com/post/banana-chocolate-chip-monkey-bread)

received some love on social media. These Pull Apart Piggies stand tiny pigs-in-a-blanket on their heads and bake similar to in pull apart bread inside a springform pan. Pick the bread apart, dip in the tangy sauce, and have a good time.

This would be an ideal dish for an upcoming backyard get together, a game day, movie night at home—well, you get the idea.

And the idea of baking meat wrapped in dough crosses cultural lines. Remember our friend Diane Carson’s British Sausage Rolls recipe she shared with us for the holidays?

(https://www.threewomeninthekitchen.com/post/british-sausage-rolls-take-the-crown)

These tasty bites wrap pork sausage in puff pastry.

Recipes for pigs-in-a-blanket go back to the early 1900s, although the dish was popularized in 1957 when it appeared in a Betty Crocker cookbook.

It looks like Betty and I aren’t the only ones who dig dogs. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC), Americans spent over $7 billion at supermarkets for hot dogs last year.

Who invented hot dogs? A German butcher, of course! What was surprising was Johann Georghehner of Coburg, Germany, created the “dachshund” or “little dog sausage” in the late 1600s.

Some folks, however, prefer not to consume hot dogs or other sausages because they are skeptical about how these meat products are made. Plenty of jokes and myths are out there. But the NHDSC notes that it’s very rare in the U.S. for hot dogs to contain organ meats, labeled as “variety meats.” Beef hot dogs utilize selected meat trimmings from roasts or steaks. Most commercial hot dogs are not sold in casings, although a small percentage using traditional casings made of intestines are sold often at the deli.

For more info, check out https://www.hot-dog.org/culture/how-hot-dogs-are-made.

For the Pull Apart Piggies, you can use a package of all-beef hot dogs (or pork or poultry, your call) and cut into 32 pieces, or you can use a package of cocktail wieners. I used the latter option. Vegetarians could probably wrap up plant-based “hot dogs,” although I’ve never tried these.

The little pigs-in-a-blanket were cute and fun to eat, but honestly, the star is the dipping sauce. I’d dip my sneakers in this sauce and take a bite (well, a slight exaggeration, but the sauce is darn good).

I hope you’ll give this recipe a try. It would be a fun dish to get the kids or grandkids involved in, too.