Pasta with Prosciutto and Chevre

This is your chance to escape the news and use up some of those hoarded pantry staples, all in one fell swoop!  You know, the boxes upon bags of pasta, beans and such you were highly advised to amass in preparation for the corona virus quarantine? You might have long familiarity with them, or perhaps stockpiling food is a more recent experience. 

Mom always had a ready supply of such items in her pantry, because when living on a farm, one did not just stop into the market to pick up a needed item.  In fact, she designed a large pantry cupboard with pull out shelves long before cabinet companies offered them to make the pantry items more accessible.  Noodles were served more often than pasta; a pasta dinner usually meant something on the heavy side, like spaghetti or macaroni. The selection at our small town grocer’s was not vast; either long thin strands or elbows. Mom made spaghetti with meatballs. My grandmother made a dish with the elbows she called Johnny Marzetti, which I adored as a child.  In retrospect, it was a fresher, homemade version of Chef-Boyardee, baked ‘til browned and bubbly. Very child friendly. Once Mom returned to full-time employment, the health food standards relaxed a bit and the occasional box of mac with the envelope of neon orange cheese could be found on the shelf. (This probably occurred when my teenage self took on doing the family grocery shopping…) Melt yourself a lump of butter, toss with the shells, a pour of milk and that fluorescent orange powder and voila! Mac-n-cheese! I loved that stuff for more years than I want to admit. Pasta in that time was definitely boxed in by both tradition and  lack of imagination. 

As a young newlywed, my pasta world exploded with the arrival of my July 1981 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. While I remember next to nothing else from the subscription, this particular issue still sits on my shelf, because it featured an entire article on summer pasta sauces, developed to save the poor harassed and overheated cook from hours of stirring sauce in the swelter of a summer kitchen. These were easy, lighter recipes using fresh vegetables, olives, tinned tuna, fresh cheeses. Most of them didn’t require cooking! Well, yeah, you still had to cook the pasta, but this could be done in advance, because all of these recipes were basically served at room temperature.  Suddenly the boundaries were broken and the way I viewed pasta changed for evermore. 

Pasta has come a long way, baby. Today the shelf holds a multitude of shapes, gluten-free and gluten-full. While we do make it from scratch occasionally, I am fortunate that a local grocer carries the dry einkorn pasta that I find easily digestible.  I have come to depend on relatively quick pasta dishes, not just for summer, but year round. An amalgam of vegetables and nuts (sometimes with meat, sometimes not,) gets tossed around quickly with a glug of olive oil and condiments, then mixed with al dente pasta. A bit of the starchy pasta water brings the whole thing together, with some type of grated or crumbled cheese typically topping it off. The concept is ultra flexible and the combinations are endless.  Pasta with Prosciutto and Chevre is one such favorite. The sauce can be made quickly while the pasta is cooking. Fresh asparagus combined with creamy goat cheese and rich pistachios, seasoned with herbs de Provence and a zip of acidity from lemon. Prosciutto provides the crisp saltiness. 

Long about now, a quick and easy pasta recipe might be just what you need, both for the heat of summer and to make a bit of space on that well stocked pantry shelf… this one fits the bill on both counts!