Man, there's been a lot of pasta around here lately.

I think these are tripolini, but the package was in Arabic, so I don't really know. (Side note: yay Persian market!) At any rate, they're clearly a soup pasta--they were kind of slippery and hard to eat with a fork, though still delicious. So I guess my next step is to develop a good brothy noodle soup recipe, right?

For this plate, I softened chopped onion and bargain bin red and yellow peppers in olive oil, seasoned with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, and maybe some paprika, deglazed with dry vermouth, and threw in chopped kale to wilt for the last five minutes of cooking. I ate it with cheese, but it's also good without.

Next up: artichoke hearts.

I've been keeping half an eye out for frozen artichoke hearts for a few years now, ever since I realized that nearly every jarred kind is pretty disgusting. So when I finally found them I was pretty excited. Artichoke heart pasta!

For this plate, I started by chopping and softening shallots, a few canned tomatoes, and some more bargain bin peppers, red and orange this time, in olive oil. I added tomato juice, dry vermouth, and several of the frozen artichoke hearts, and put the lid on the pan to let them steam. Salt, pepper, basil, marjoram (by this point we had run out of oregano). Once the artichokes were soft through, I broke them up with the back of a spoon. After another five minutes to reduce, I turned off the heat and added chopped parsley. Done.

I ate mine with copious cheese, as well as far too high a proportion of pasta. It was great nonetheless.