Spring is your time to indulge in all things PEAS!

I’m telling you Diamonds, peas and pasta are a match made in heaven. There’s a reason they put peas on a pedestal over in Sicily. If they’re blooming and in season they give a dish that pop of color and freshness we all desire when creating a bright, spring time recipe. Whenever I get a craving for peas, I always want pasta with them. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. Truly. This meal is so simple, yet so satisfying. It’s perfect for a side dish when you’re hosting a dinner party, or you can whip this up pretty quickly for a yummy week night meal that the entire family will love.

Ingredients:

• Four tablespoons of butter.
• Olive oil.
• 2 cloves of minced garlic.
• 1/2 of a yellow onion, small diced.
• 1/8 cup of sherry wine.
• Reserve two ladles full of pasta water.
• A 16 oz. container of ricotta cheese.
• One bag of frozen peas. Rinsed and drained.
• The zest from one lemon.
• 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.
• The juice from 1/2 or a whole lemon depending on how big your lemon is.
• An entire package of prosciutto, chopped.
• 1lb. of pasta. I used ditalini.
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
• 1/2 teaspoon of oregano, and parsley.

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Instructions:

• 1. Get a pot of water boiling to cook the ditalini.
• 2. Saute the onion and garlic in two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Keep stirring so the garlic does not burn. We just want the vegetables to be translucent.
• 3. Deglaze after five minutes with the sherry wine.
• 4. Add in the pasta water you reserved from cooking the ditalini.
• 5. Whisk in a 16oz. container of ricotta cheese.
• 6. Squeeze in the lemon juice.
• 7. Toss in your peas and lower the heat.
• 8. Mix in your cooked and drained pasta.
• 9. Add two more tablespoons of butter.
• 10. Sprinkle in the grated cheese. I swear every pasta dish needs grated cheese.
• 11. While you let all of those flavors in the pasta marry and come together, you can fry up the prosciutto.
• 12. In a small saute pan fry up the chopped prosciutto in one tablespoon of olive oil.
• 13. Serve the pasta in a large family style bowl and sprinkle the crispy prosciutto all over the top.
• 14. Lastly, garnish with more grated cheese, and lemon zest.

This is definitely a pasta dish you’ll want to serve as soon as you make it! The hotter and fresher, the better. Of course, the leftovers will be great as well, however, you will want to taste that bright lemon flavor and crunch on those crispy prosciutto pieces while you can!

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Once you start making Italian peas and pasta in your house, it will become a weekly staple. It’s something everyone loves, even the ones who say they don’t like peas. When you use fresh peas that are frozen it makes a huge difference then if you were to use peas straight out of the can. Two completely different colors and textures! Also, PSA announcement do not skip on the crispy prosciutto. It makes this dish! If you love bacon, there’s absolutely no reason in the world you wouldn’t be into the flavor it brings to sweet peas and the creamy pasta.

Don’t forget to give my website a follow at the bottom right hand corner by typing in your email address and going to your inbox to confirm. Before you Diamonds know it it will be Summer here on the blog so look forward to all of those posts coming up for Memorial Day weekend!

xoxo