Rainbow chard & cannellini beans over brown rice

Bok Choy & Shitake stir fry

Another easy recipe for a quick eat. Coat pan with canola oil, add sliced ginger, stir up some bok choy (stems first) and shiitake mushrooms for 3,4 minutes. Add some water (enough to cover pan but not too much... you don't want to drown the vegetables), lemon zest, and salt. Let simmer until bok choy stems soften, add the leafy bits of bok choy, then squeeze some lemon juice (always fresh) over pan and a bit of soy sauce to taste. I then threw some leftover brown rice directly into the pan, mainly because I don't like using microwaves to heat up my food.

Spring pasta

Spring pasta, because of the asparagus. Couldn't be easier to make. All I did was saute bacon and garlic in olive oil for two minutes, add cherry tomatoes and asparagus, a good ladle-full of starchy pasta water, salt and pepper, and let simmer for 5 minutes. Threw in cooked pasta towards the end. I used organic whole wheat fusilli this time, not De Cecco, my usual pasta of choice.

This would have been fine, but I went a step further and topped it with a fried egg. And parmesan cheese of course. The culprit of my over-zealousness being Mario Batali's Asparagus Milanese - fried egg over grilled asparagus - which is more of a brunch thing. I was in the mood for something a bit more substantial, so I decided to turn it into a pasta dish, using the same ingredients plus more.