Springtime pasta dish

We were in Russos, picking up some veggies for the week, and got some ramps and fiddleheads. It is spring, after all, and its the only time you'll find these things, since they don't get cultivated anywhere regularly. I'm sure you could grow fiddleheads in CA, but they just don't bother, or something like that. Anyway, Ed got excited to make a pasta dish with a cream sauce and some asparagus, and the fiddleheads and ramps slid right into that idea, quite nicely. He also put in some Andouille sausage, from the sausage shop up in Saugus, that he was super excited about. It was certainly delicious sausage, and went really well with this meal.

The cream sauce was pretty bland, as I suppose cream sauces should be, so as to not overwhelm the deliciousness of everything on top of the pasta, although I would have preferred something lighter. The sauce thickened a little more than we had reckoned, which made it tough to get even coverage on the pasta. I think Ed got the recipe for it online somewhere, but I don't know where. As far as I know, it was fairly standard.

Cream Sauce
1-1/3C heavy cream
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
nutmeg
salt
pepper
white wine

Melt the butter in a saucepan, and add the flour to make a roue. Add the cream, and the flavorings. I recommend going heavy on the wine, because we only added a bit, and the sauce was a bit too thick. Taste occasionally, and once it is the consistency you like, remove it from the heat. Add salt and pepper to taste as well. And nutmeg.


Green stuff on top
~1/2lb ramps, chopped roughly
~1/2lb fiddleheads
1 bunch of asparagus, chopped into 1/2" pieces
~1C mushrooms, we used oyster mushrooms
2 andouille sausage links

In a frying pan, heat some oil, and once its shimmery, add everything. Cook until the sausage is cooked through and the asparagus and fiddleheads taste perfect (crisp, yet cooked). Add to your creamy pasta.

The green stuff for the top.


Mix it all together and enjoy!