Okay, so these next 3 recipes are not one pot meals. But they're still delicious.

Lemon Herb Pasta with Beets, Broccoli and Peas

This is a meal that I made from vegetables that came from our CSA this week. The sauce may taste a little tart on it's own, but the combination of the sweet beets and peas as well as the sort of middle of the ground pasta round out the flavour quite nicely.

For the sauce
1 cup of white wine
1/4 cup of water
1 lemon
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 a lemons worth of zest
3 tbsp of olive oil
1 tablespoon basil parsley verdurette
4 oz. butter
Fresh basil & dill chopped - whatever I could harvest from our plants.
salt & pepper to taste (quite a bit of pepper)

I put the wine on the stove with a bit of the water and heated it up. Squeezed the lemon juice in with the olive oil and added the zest, with a bit of salt and mixed it in a bowl with the minced garlic. Then I added it to the wine, with some of the butter and the verdurette. I kept it going on the stove for around 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes, adding and tweaking the flavours (sorry if you are trying to recreate this - I wasn't very scientific).

For the vegetables:
1 Beet, sliced into thin quarters.
3/4 cup fresh peas
2 small heads of broccoli, pulled apart to make bite sized florets.

I put the beets in the steamer basket first, because they needed the most time. Then I added the broccoli and peas.

I tossed them all together with fusilli pasta I cooked while making the sauce, then we ate it. Then I packed the leftovers for my lunch today and it was even better. I'm still thinking about it.

Sweet Pea Spread

More deliciousness from our CSA.

1 cup fresh sweet peas
1/4 cup chopped mint
1 lemon - juice of and zest of
2 tbsps ground walnuts (or almonds)
1/4 cup of grated parmesan (optional - one could add more nuts or maybe try substituting with nutritional yeast)
1 tbsp olive oil
kosher/sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Combine the ingredients in a bowl and either process in a food processor or leave as is. Use for spreads on toast, crackers or just guiltily eat it by the spoonful when you come home one night after drinking wine with Laila.

Ad Lib Peanut Sauce

Made very quickly with ingredients on hand, basically because I was missing the tofu satay I used to get at Zenyai in Santa Barbara. Of course all of the amounts are to taste but here's a rough guide:

2 tbsp peanut butter
1 lime
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp garlic powder (we ran out of fresh!)
pinch ginger powder
pinch of white pepper
1 tsp chili-garlic paste.

Combine and eat with sliced cucumbers nacho style. I could also envision actually spreading it on cucumber slices and serving as hors d'oeuvres.

Quick Soba Noodle Soup

This is a very easy, very fast soup. You can make it and eat it in less than 15 minutes. It is good as one course of a multi-course meal, or as a light meal. Experiment with the spices and which vegetables you use. Pretty much any fresh or frozen vegetables will be good in this soup (cabbage, zucchini, bok choy, greens of any kind, broccoli, thinly sliced carrots, green beans). The mix I list below is just what I happened to have handy. It takes so little time to cook this soup that you should probably get all your ingredients together ahead of time.

8 frozen soup stock cubes
4 cups water
1/3 cup or less soy sauce
1 & 1/2 teaspoons granulated garlic
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
several drops sesame oil

Add broth ingredients to a pot and bring to a boil.

2 bunches (175 grams) soba noodles

Once the broth is boiling, add the noodles. Cook almost until done (maybe 2 to 3 minutes). Then turn off the heat and add the following.

1 cup frozen corn
3/4 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen lima beans
2 tender stalks of celery, including the leaves, sliced diagonally
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Let the vegetables warm up, then serve and eat.

If you'd rather use fresh ginger and garlic, add half of each to the pot at the beginning, and add the rest at the end with the vegetables.

Broccoli Gorgonzola Soup

We had the Waitrose version of this soup while staying with at my aunt's house in the south of England this last winter. The Waitrose version had a surprisingly short list of ingredients - we are usually not the types to eat "pre-made" meals, what with all their nitrites and ridiculous ingredients lists. Anyway, inspired, we decided to make our own.

1 onion, chopped
3 heads of broccoli, floretted.
1 block (about 6 0z) of Gorgonzola (or Stilton or Bleu etc), crumbled
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper, olive oil to taste
olive oil
4 cups of water/stock - I used my homemade stock

Heat olive oil in a pot on low heat. Add onions. Once they have softened, add broccoli and garlic. Cook for about a minute. Add the water/stock and bring to a boil. Leave to simmer until broccoli is cooked. Remove from heat and add Gorgonzola, stir until it is fully melted/incorporated. Blend in batches. Once all of it is smooth, return the soup to pot and reheat.

SERVE AND EAT. (You can sprinkle a little extra Gorgonzola on the top if you wish and serve with nice, fresh, crusty bread)