Spaghetti with courgettes, ricotta, basil, and lemon

300g dried spaghetti
1tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 courgettes, thinly sliced
finely grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
50g ricotta cheese, crumbled
1tbsp grated parmesan cheese
2 tomatoes, diced
8 basil leaves, ripped
1tbsp pine nuts toasted
Freshly ground black pepper

Cook the pasta for 1 minute less then recommended on the packet. Drain reserving a little of the cooking water.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, or wok, and fry the garlic and courgettes over a medium heat, turning regularly, for about 3 minutes till just starting to color.
Add the pasta to the courgettes together with 3-4tbsp cooking water. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, both cheeses, the tomatoes, basil and pine nuts, and toss to combine. Season with pepper and serve immediately.

My father-in-law is visiting right now, and he has recently been diagnosed as being borderline diabetic. When I found out I went to the library to find some diabetes cookbooks. They only had two, but it’s a good jumping off point. This one is called The Diabetes Weight Loss Diet.

Looking through these cookbooks, I found that it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Now, if you are actually diabetic and reading this, please know that I do not know much about this, and I could easily be wrong, as I have only consulted two sources. From these two sources though, I have gathered that the emphasis is really more on high fiber, then on low carb. By that I mean that the high fiber carbs seem to be fairly acceptable like brown rice instead of white and things like that. This recipe actually used regular pasta. The idea was that all of the fiber in the raw and lightly cooked vegetables, balanced out the carbs of the pasta. I decided to use whole wheat pasta anyway.

This dish was nice. It wasn’t terribly special or fancy, but the lemon made it very summer-y and refreshing. Also, it’s incredibly fast to make. The sauce can be made in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. I could see myself making this again.