8 ounces bowtie pasta
16 asparagus tips
4 large button or crimini mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons parmesan, grated
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1 tablespoon parsley
salt and white pepper
water

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees with a large, oven-proof skillet in it.
2. Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot and add bowtie pasta, cooking until tender.
3. Meanwhile, remove skillet from the oven, add the olive oil, asparagus tips and mushrooms. Return to oven for about 5 minutes or until asparagus tips are slightly browned.
4. Remove mushrooms and asparagus from skillet and place it over medium heat on the stove top.
5. Add the chicken stock or sauce from Pork and Lemon Polpentine to the pan, black and white pepper and parsley to the pan and stir to deglaze.
6. Stir the pasta, mushrooms and asparagus tips into the sauce and plate.
7. Serve with several Pork and Lemon Polpentine and garnish with walnuts, pine nuts and parmesan cheese.

Makes 2 servings

1 pound ground pork
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 lemon, zest and juice
1/4 cup parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons parmesan, grated
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper

1. Combine pork and bread crumbs in a large bowl. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, thyme, parmesan, salt and pepper and mix well.
2. Make the meat mixture into approximately 18 individual balls. Press them slightly to flatten each end and lightly press into a small plate of flour.
3. Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat.
4. Fry the meatballs in batches small enough so that they do not touch, 4 minutes per side, until crisped, then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook through to the center, about an additional 8 minutes.
5. Once all of the meatballs have been cooked, drain the fat from the pan and add the chicken stock, scraping up any bits that are stuck to the pan. Reduce the liquid for several minutes, then use this as a sauce for the meatballs.

Makes 18 meatballs

Tonight I was having a hard time coming up with what to have for dinner, which seems to be a common occurrence lately. In the back of my mind was this little package of discounted ground pork that I saw at the supermarket earlier this week. Obviously either someone bought it or it has been discarded by now (I hope), but I started looking for recipes using ground pork. I found one for something that I thought was some sort of casserole by the name, Pork and Lemon Polpentine, but is actually a fancy cocktail type meatball. The original recipe called for sardines which likely would've changed the flavor quite a bit. Instead, they were flavored mainly with lemon and thyme. The meatballs themselves are a little dry, but when combined with the sauce from pan drippings and chicken stock they were actually quite good.

So then I had to ask myself what I wanted to eat with a bunch of meatballs. Since my Meatball Marinara Sub was nearly transformed into spaghetti and meatballs, I figured I'd take the pasta and meatball route. Spaghetti and meatballs wouldn't work quite as well with a thyme and lemon flavored meatball, I figured, so I made Woodland Bowtie Pasta instead. It always amazes me how expensive nuts can be, especially pine nuts. I bought perhaps 2 heaping tablespoons of pine nuts for this dish specifically and it was almost a dollar! I am a fan of pine nuts, but they are not so especially delicious that I'm willing to pay so much very often. The sauce for the pasta is created from the drippings from the meatballs, as well as the flavor of the vegetables and olive oil, one of the simplest ways to dress pasta.

Speaking of pasta, I caught an episode of the new Jamie Oliver series, "Jamie's Italy" and I love it. I think it's really ballsy for a show like his to show something like a boar being hunted and gutted for the dinner of a village. It's kind of shocking and funny to his target audience, since we're all so dissociated with where our food actually comes from. I also think it's humorous how all these old Italian ladies are teaching him to cook and he's just sitting there saying, "I know how to make pasta… please!"