French Market

I knew there would be a perfect time to write about the French Market that is across the street from our building in downtown Chicago.

It’s fun to stroll over to the market on weekend days when we don’t have much going on and planning our dinner on what we find. One of my favorite shops is this pasta shop that sells Pappardelle’s Pasta. This pasta is handmade, using the finest ingredients. The noodles are really loooooong, and they have all sorts of interesting flavors (including chocolate hazelnut dessert ravioli!!). We bought garlic spinach, sundried tomato, and sweet potato pasta. Our plan was to combine the garlic spinach and roasted tomato basil pasta with some lightly sautéed vegetables and make a sauce. We picked up some red and green bell peppers, tomatoes, and green onions and we were ready to go!

Sidebar: My favorite pastry shop in the French Market is Vanille Patisserie. All of their desserts are designed to perfection with layers of textures and flavors topped with accessories I didn’t even think would be edible. They have quite a few regular desserts lining the shelves and new ones pop up every now and then along with some seasonal delights.  

Anyway, back at home we got going on the pasta. As the pasta was cooking, we simply sautéed the chopped veggies in olive oil with some garlic and a variety of seasonings (we add the tomatoes at the very end). Once the noodles were drained and placed back into the pot, we started making the sauce by stirring it right into the hot noodles. We used reserve noodle water, a little half and half, grated parmesan cheese, a little butter, and freshly ground black pepper. Sometimes I’ll splash in a little lemon or lime juice too. So simple and so good. We then plated the noodles, topped them with the sautéed veggies, fresh basil and parsley, a little grated parmesan cheese, and a little freshly ground black pepper again. Delicious. We enjoyed the pasta with a deep red Malbec. Perfection. 

The uncooked noodles

Cooked noodles with our homemade sauce

With all the veggies and toppings

The pasta tasted great! The combination of the garlic spinach and the sundried tomato flavors were really awesome together. I highly recommend giving these a try. I’m really excited to try a new recipe with the sweet potato pasta!