Summer Pasta in Light Butter Sauce

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes | Originally enjoyed on: 8/3/2009

Pasta in light butter sauce, sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

Another light summer meal? You betcha.

I was in a crunch and needed something quick to eat. After digging around the refrigerator, I located half a red onion, some snow peas, an ear of corn, and a red bell pepper. It’s surprising what you can pull together with just a few ingredients.

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On the side, break the corn ear in half and roast in a medium pan. Sprinkle olive oil or butter so that it won’t burn. You can also add salt and pepper now, but we like to leave that part to the person eating it.

Boil a pot of water and prepare pasta (we used fettuccine); while that’s cooking, wash and cut your vegetables.  We cut the red onion and bell pepper into vertical strips for a visual effect.

Next, cook the vegetables over medium heat. Add onions first, then bell peppers after the onions are a bit translucent. Add the snow peas after the bell peppers have been cooking for a couple of minutes.

After your pasta and vegetables are done, it’s sauce time!

John and I prepared two versions: the fast version and the faster version. The first is a homemade butter sauce–you can use real butter, but I achieved a good enough flavor with Smart Balance (1/2 butter, 1/2 butter substitute). Add a bit a of garlic and salt and you’re good to go.

The faster version is if you’re too lazy to wait for butter to melt for your own sauce (or if no butter is available for the sauce). I used a pre-made cream sauce that had sun-dried tomatoes in it. These “premium” sauces may be a tad more expensive than your regular spaghetti, but it’s well worth it (a smart shopper could also get them on sale for $2.50 or less at Safeway).

With the cream sauce, served with a side of corn.

Sprinkle with a bit of parmesan cheese, and enjoy! We had this meal with Mark on the balcony.  Hope to see you there next time!

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