Brown Butter Garden Vegetable Pasta Skillet.

This pasta skillet looks like the inside of my car.

Not because the inside of my car is filled with noodles and brown butter and ha – vegetables! – but because the inside of my car is a giant mess.

We’re talking huge.

And the thing is, in all of my type A-ness, regardless of how I want things a certain way or how I want things to be neat and clean or how I want things to be perfectly in place, there are two places where that rule is totally null and void: my car and my bedroom.

I can’t even tell you about my dorm room in college. OMG. It makes me want to barf. Not because it was dirty, but because I would literally pile up clothes to the height of my desk chair before forcing myself to clean the mess. Which was like, such a huge pain because then it took FOR-EV-ER, (Sandlot-style.) Yeah yeah yeah… if I just put my things where they belong after I was done using them, I wouldn’t have had that problem now would I? Whatever. Don’t look at me.

Sometimes I would let my bedroom at home get just as bad. Sometimes I couldn’t even see the floor. And the worst part was that a lot of it had to do with trying on 36 outfits before deciding on one. So the carpet was littered with clean, now completely wrinkled clothing. Oh come on. I know you’ve definitely done the same thing. With five minutes left before leaving for your destination, you decide that you need to change outfits – like your life depends on it – and you frantically rip 8000 things out of your closet and try to put them on at once. And there is no time to pick it all up before you leave. And then you get home really late. And then the next day, you go to work, and you come home and you’re just so tiiiiiired and… you know where this is going. Vicious vicious cycle.

I’ve sort of let my current bedroom get to this state once or twice, but it usually has to do with traveling and busy weeks. And then I feel bad because it’s not just MY room (though um, I totally have made it MY room since I’ve used every drawer and square inch of closet in the space, forcing my husband to put his clothes somewhere else) and I go through the whole pain-in-the-butt cleanup process.

Will I ever learn? Stop asking.

But my car?

That’s a whole different ball game. Because in my car it’s usually just me. And only me. My husband’s biggest pet peeve (besides when I vacuum and leave the cord plugged in and unwrapped) is my cluttered car that is filled with… well, my life. You know – purses and yoga mats and hats for workouts and headbands for workouts and snacks in case I get hungry and lipgloss that’s fallen out of my purse and gum wrappers that I forgot to throw away and receipts from the iced coffee that I don’t even like and anything and everything I’ve printed off the computer and never brought into the house and at any given time about 13 water bottles – some empty, some half full.

This… enrages him.

During our first year of marriage, we got in such a big fight about the state of my car (that he never even had to drive) that we didn’t speak for like 36 hours. The we (I really mean he) learned to pick and choose our battles (oh marriage!) and decided to only spend like 16 minutes fighting over the state of my car. And sometimes I will be really nice and make a steak dinner and be like… oh… can you help me clean my car? Which really translates to “I’ll stay up here and clean the kitchen while you clean my car since me being down there with you would be like the equivalent to you standing on top of me in the kitchen while I’m trying to make biscuits.”

And that really translates to me blasting my music as loud as I can in the kitchen so I don’t hear him screaming from the garage “13 water bottles?! Seriously? THIRTEEN WATER BOTTLES? Why can’t you just throw them away? WHYYYY?”

So long story long… this pasta is like the inside of my car: a ton of stuff thrown together to create a mess. Albeit a delicious one.

And guess what? I don’t CARE that there is brown butter or that there is parmesan or that there is provolone because there are freaking vegetables all.over.it. And that’s what matters. Get rid of your summer produce, cover it in brown butter, cover it in cheese, and you have a meal. With vegetables!

This is so simple.

Brown Butter Garden Vegetable Pasta Bake

Yield: 4 to 6

Prep Time: 35 minutes mins

Cook Time: 10 minutes mins

Total Time: 45 minutes mins

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5 from 7 votes

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Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat pasta, like rigatoni
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 2 ears of fresh corn, cut off the cob
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 ounces freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 4 ounces freshly grated provolone cheese
• fresh parsley for garnish

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare water for pasta and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add pasta to cook. Drain when finished.
• While pasta is cooking, heat a large oven-safe skillet oven medium-low heat. Add in olive oil, then add in onions, zucchini, corn and tomatoes with salt and pepper, stirring to coat. Cook for 10-15 minutes, tossing occasionally, while softened.
• While pasta and vegetables are cooking, heat a small saucepan oven medium heat. Add in butter and whisk constantly, stirring until bubbly and brown bits appear on the bottom, about 5-6 minutes. Remove and set aside.
• Turn off heat under vegetables and add in pasta. Drizzle in brown butter and add in parmesan, stirring well to coat. Top with provolone, the place in the oven and cook for 10 minutes, just until cheese is melty. Remove and serve immediately, garnishing with parsley and extra cheese if desired.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

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Now if cleaning my car was just that simple. Oh wait. I bet it is. Stop it.