my.requiescence.

Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil

So…….

it’s been really hard to break the silence.

I’ve started and stopped and erased posts at least 5 times since we last spoke about absurdly excessive cookies, which was 2 whole months ago!!! And as more and more days passed, the more I felt that I had to present a worthy post to compensate for the length of silence… which at this point, would have required something made with several pounds of butter, deep-fried, covered in dark chocolate and gold leaf, with unicorns and rainbows shooting out of it.

But I didn’t want you all to think I was giving you the cold shoulder or that my kitchen had burned down, it’s just that as I’ve ramped up productivity and increased hours in the lab in hopes of being able to schedule a thesis defense date (WHICH I NOW HAVE!!!!), the rest of my life has suffered as a result. It’s not all Lab’s fault. I also have been attempting to plan a wedding of some sort. And have been house-hunting. And have been looking at cute puppy pictures. And trying to figure out what to do with my life post-Ph.D. (read: find a JOB). Which pretty much has left my kitchen devoid of ingredients for dinner and cookies, or even PIECES OF FRUIT!

I also reached that time of the year, as I do every year, when I get tired (so very very tired) of the painful elusiveness of spring/summer and consecutive days over 70 degrees F. Apparently it wasn’t enough that we suffered through record amounts of snow in all of January, we were also tortured by snow on April Fool’s and had to endure a soul-sucking, rainy, gloomy, gray May, which in addition to extended hours in lab, only succeeded in making me more cranky and restless, unable to focus on updating tumblrs with non-depressing posts. 

But now we’ve FINALLY had a week of consecutive days of over 70 degree weather and sunshine (well, except that freak tornado-induced thunderstorm on Wednesday, what WAS that?!), and my mood has lifted considerably. I want to spend every minute I can outside, thawing out, ridding my body of any memory of the last 6 months, and soaking up the sun’s Vitamin D-filled rays to replenish the severe deficit from winter. And warmer weather means spring/summer produce- some of my favorites: berries berries berries, peaches, apricots, rhubarb, and barbeque. Yes, I know that barbeque is not a produce, but I just want to grill everything in sight and eat it IN or WITH a salad.. which kind of makes it produce, right?

Anyway, because the weather has changed and my demanding stomach no longer craves heavily sauced pastas, braised meats and mashed potatoes, we have been slowly transitioning to lighter dinner fare, such as this lemon olive oil spaghetti with shrimp. It’s still satisfyingly carby and just creamy enough, but made lighter from an ample amount of fresh lemon zest and juice.

I went on a real lemon kick, as you’ll see in the next few lemon-centric posts as I work my way from a backlog of April and May recipes, since the bright zing of lemon citrus can really brighten any uncharacteristically gloomy and cold in-between-winter-and-spring/summer day!

Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 pound spaghetti or linguine
Salt
3 lemons
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil , plus additional for serving
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 ounce finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup), plus additional for serving
Ground black pepper
Small handful fresh basil or arugula leaves (or both!), shredded

 

1. Cook linguine or spaghetti in well-salted water to your al dente tastes in a large, wide-bottomed pot.
2. While pasta is cooking, zest lemons until you have a little shy of a tablespoon of zest. Juice lemons —about 1/3 to 1/2 cup lemon juice.
3. Drain pasta, reserving 1 1/2 cups of pasta cooking water. 
4. Dry out your pot, then boil the olive oil, cream, zest and 1 cup of the reserved pasta water together for two minutes over high heat.
5. Return pasta to pot and stir until coated. 
6. Add the cheese and 1/4 cup lemon juice and toss, toss, toss everything together. 
7. Add more pasta water, 1/4 cup at a time, if you’d like your dish a little looser. Quickly taste a strand of pasta and see if you want to add the remaining lemon juice. 
8. Stir in basil or arugula and season generously with salt and pepper.
9. Serve immediately, drizzling individual portions with a bit of extra olive oil and sprinkling with extra Parmesan.