This time of year, this type of dish comes to mind; fresh vegetables always remind us of spring. We like to toss together a combination of vegetables and mix it together with some pasta and wine and have a light meal. Shrimp is a nice touch as well. However, this time we went a little berserk in the vegetable aisle of the supermarket and decided to add pretty much everything that came to mind. At one point during the cooking we felt some concern that there were too many vegetables as they seemed to be piling over the edge of the pot and the pasta had yet to be added (thus the “extravaganza” in the name, and it was no longer what one would call “light”), but this proved to be not an issue at all. The dish turned out to be a resounding success and all of the flavors worked really well together. We couldn’t stop piling extra helpings onto our plates and still have plenty of leftovers, which will make the next few days that much better. Here’s how we did it:
summer
Steak and vegetable skewers with couscous
On the first sunny Saturday of spring, the urge to grill was too great to resist. In the area of safe experimentation, I used a similar recipe that I had used in the past for swordfish. A good marinade seems to be something that can transfer from one medium to another, so I’ll probably use it again, maybe with some other sort of meat, or maybe with none. However, for the sake of simplicity I will describe how I made it this time. The meat and vegetables are served as one dish together, either on or beside the couscous.
Wild Boar Basil 