Pasta with smoked salmon and creme fresh

I had this dish three times while I was in France this winter. The first time Pru made it while we were walking together in southern France, it was so good I even had leftovers for breakfast. After that I made it for myself when I was walking alone after Pru went back home and at the end of my trip I found it on the menu of a restaurant in Paris all three times I thoroughly enjoyed it ad I think it is one of the best pasta dishes I have ever had.

This version of it is a bit different, being a vegetarian, I've added some mushrooms and peas to the dish,but it still has the same great flavor.

The ingredients:

250 g of your favorite pasta
250 ml crème Fresh
85 g wild smokes salmon
2 cloves garlic
3 or 4 mushrooms
250 ml frozen peas
olive oil, salt and pepper

If you can't find crème fresh,like me, it's easy to make your own. To 250ml heavy cream add one table spoon of a good quality plain white yogurt mix it together cover and keep at room temperature for 2 to 3 days until it cultures and turns thick, that's all crème fresh is just a cultured cream.

While the pasta is cooking in salted water saute mushrooms, garlic and peas in olive oil. When the pasta is ready add to the saute pan along with a little of the pasta water and the crème fresh reduce over high heat for a couple of minutes add the smoked salmon and cook for another minute. That's it ready to eat, add cheese if you want but no Italian would ever use cheese with fish.

Square foot garden behind rabbit fence.

Square foot garden behind rabbit fence., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

A great day in the garden yesterday I spent the day moving from project to project.. Built another trellis and installed it in the square foot garden , I have two more to build but I'm glad to say they will not be going in the section of the garden that is behind the three foot rabbit fence. Not a lot of fun trying to get these things over the fence.

My plan had been to plant Cannellini Pole beans on this trellis but when I opened the packages of seeds that I had received from the Yahoo Heirloom Gardening group there were only five beans in the package and I question whether or not they are actually Cannellini beans they look too big to me, anyway not enough seed so I planted more Tall Telephone peas along with the five bean seeds.



In the afternoon I discovered that my grow bags had arrived at the Co-op garden center. My next door neighbor trucked them home for me. My tomato seedlings are still small but I decided to transplant some into the greenhouse. I have had three in a pop-up greenhouse out in the square foot garden for a week now and they are doing fine, so I'm sure there will be some benefit from getting them established early in the greenhouse. I also planted two Greenhouse Cucumber Seeds variety Carmen. These have to be direct seeded as they do not like to be transplanted. Very expensive seed $8.65 for five seed, but the yield off each plant is amazing all blossoms are female so every blossom produces a cucumber.



I also planed three tubs of potatoes in straight compost from my composter. The potatoes are some that were left over the winter in the basement and have grown foot long sprouts, I'll be interested to see how they do in compost it sure looked dark and rich.