Rosemary Peas and Pasta

A vegetarian option from the book Quick & Easy meals, this recipe was a promisingly simply concept: cook pasta, cook vegetables, mix.  It was indeed easy to create, however, the timing of everything was off.

The recipe in the book said to cook the pasta and reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water.  Then, take 8 minutes to cook garlic, onions, frozen peas, and dried rosemary covered in a large skillet.  Then, add the pasta water, cook for 3 more minutes, add pasta and top with some Parmesan.

Seems foolproof enough...until you realize that the final product will be luke warm because the pasta has had too much time to cool.  There's two ways to combat this, one would be to cook the pasta at the same time as the vegetables (for you multitaskers out there), or to heat the oven to about 200 degrees and stick the cooked pasta in there while you do other business.  I chose the first one.

As for the vegetables, I ended up with a slightly charred final product.  The time should have been closer to 5 minutes, but that could be a variable that is due to my own stove.

So, after putting the pasta water in with the charred vegetables, I had a nice charred...sauce.  I ended up adding the pasta to the dish with the pasta water so the pasta would have some of the flavor of the dish.

The final product was....eh.  It had a very dark flavor to it, and I think that it was more than slightly overcooking the vegetables.  I think it was the rosemary, and I believe if I was able to find a brighter herb to use instead, it would be a lovely dish.