Whole Wheat Pasta with pine nuts and walnuts

During my daily scanning of my google reader feeds, I go through a lot of food sites including Serious Eats. Today, I made the wrong choice of looking at recipes and other food related materials before lunch. I came across one from Serious Eats for so called “Nutty Pasta.”

The recipe was pulled from a cookbook called Almost Meatless and as the title implies, does contain some meat. Since I didn’t happen to have the anchovies required for the dish, I decided to make it Totally Meatless, aka, vegetarian. The recipe below is for 4 servings, but I cut it in half.

I could see how adding the anchovies would really accent the flavors nicely and so I would put them in if you have them available. I did make a few slight additions which I note below.

Ingredients:

(serves 4)

1 pound whole wheat pasta (penne)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 anchovy filets, chopped
1/3 cup pine nuts, ground in a food processor
1/3 cup walnuts, ground in a food processor
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp lemon zest
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, minced
1/4 tsp red pepper corns
1/8 tsp porcini mushrooms powder

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil, and then add the pasta and cook according to package directions.

While the past cooks, heat the olive oil in a high-sided frying pan large enough to accommodate all the pasta over medium heat. [Add the anchovy], nuts, red pepper flakes, and garlic, stirring often (the anchovy should be broken up and will dissolve into olive oil). When the nuts smell toasty, after about 5 minutes, kill the heat and set the pan aside.

Drain the pasta, reserving about 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking liquid. Return the pan with the nut sauce to medium heat, and add the cooked pasta to the sauce. Toss to combine, adding the reserved cooking liquid until the pasta is moist and coated. Stir in the lemon zest and parsley, toss to combine, and serve at once.

Enjoy!!