By Joe Yonan Food and Dining Editor March 2 at 7:00 AM

One rap on vegetarians I know, because Ive said it myself is that some of them should really be called carbotarians. They eat meals that are technically vegetarian because theres no meat, but the dishes dont feature vegetables in any interesting way, either. And guess what that leaves? These are the pasta-with-butter and grilled-cheese-with-nothing people, whose diets remind me of a childs and a picky ones at that.

[Make the recipe: Pasta With Pistachios.]

Despite my criticism of that type of vegetarianism, every so often, I join their ranks. On those nights, because Im too busy or the fridge is devoid of fresh produce or I just have a hankering for easy and nostalgic flavors, I want a big bowl of pasta with little more than a shower of cheese and some olive oil or butter. Perhaps a few garlic cloves and a scattering of toasted nuts. Maybe an herb or two. The emphasis, really, is on the pasta, and theres not a vegetable of substance in sight.

In the height of summer, these are the pesto days, when I dip into the jar of sauce I make every few weeks and toss it with whatever pasta in my pantry is shaped appropriately enough to hold onto its goodness. But even then, because my own garden is producing so many vegetables, there are always some greens or peppers or squash to throw into the bowl, too. In the winter, I make pesto far less often, and when I do, Im much more apt to make it the only other ingredient in the dish besides the pasta.

This is also when I use a much higher proportion of nuts to herbs, a trick I learned from the guys at Frankies Spuntino in New York. In their 2010 cookbook, The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual, the first recipe in their dried-pasta chapter is probably the one I make most often when the weather is cold. They combine orecchiette with a pesto that includes a lot of pistachios and a little mint (plus garlic and cheese), giving it a Sicilian bent.

For this winter dish, I like to cook whole-grain pasta, whose heartiness complements the pestos nuttiness. Most recently, I tossed the pesto with a beautiful rye-flour campanelle (ruffled trumpet-shaped pasta) that I bought from Brooklyns Sfoglini. As I devoured one bite after another, it occurred to me that the next time I make it, I might add some broccoli, or roasted Brussels sprouts.

Or maybe I wont. Now and then, its fun to be a carbotarian.

Read the original here:
Sometimes, all you want is a big bowl of pasta. This is for those times.