cute kitchen

We’re not big zucchini fans in my house. I still cook and bake with it but it’s never greeted particularly warmly at the dinner table.

Our weekly farmers market had beautiful organic zucchinis on the weekend so I bought two and decided to find a way to incorporate them into a pasta dish which made them not just edible but actually delicious.

I think I succeeded! The result is a simple pasta dish with few ingredients, yet each plays an important role. The marinated zucchini still has a slight bite to it, the lemon zest and juice add a great tang and a very light bitter note, the thyme harmonises nicely with the butter and the parmesan comes in such a large quantity – how could the pasta not end up being delicious 🤭. I added spinach to „green it up“ a bit and as always, spinach proved to be a great accompaniment.

Please take care to julienne the zucchini finely! I cut mine into thin strips, about 5-6cm long (so that they still fit nicely in your mouth). They should only be 0.5-1cm in width 😊.

Do all of your prep in advance, once the pasta is in the water you’ll need to have all your ingredients ready so the sauce can come together as soon as the pasta is drained.

Ingredients for 4 people

2 zucchini, julienned, then combined with the juice of 1 lemon plus 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1 additional lemon, zested and juiced

225g parmesan, grated

10 thyme twigs, leaves plucked

150g butter, melted

200g baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped

500g Barilla tagliatelle (or another brand)

• prep your zucchini first, then set aside to marinate (this step can easily be done in the morning then left (covered) on the bench until dinner time)!

• mix your melted butter with lemon zest, juice of one lemon and thyme leaves

• put your pasta into boiling water and cook according to the instruction times

• before draining your pasta, reserve 200ml of the cooking water

• drain pasta, return to pot and add zucchini, butter mix, spinach, parmesan and reserved pasta water

• give everything a really good stir and then season extremely well with salt and lots of pepper!

ENJOY!