Baked Lemon Pasta

When I first saw this recipe, my reaction was, "OMG I MUST MAKE THIS RIGHT NOW!!!"  I sent it to Sarah, who agreed that it looked good but wondered if I could maybe add some vegetables in to make it a wee bit healthier.  I picked a few random things I wanted to throw in there, then threw in a few more when I thought to myself, "What veggies are good with lemon?"  The resulting dish was fantastic.

Baked Lemon Pasta
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Ingredients:

• 1 pound thin spaghetti
• 6 ounces Portabello mushrooms, chopped
• 2 leeks, chopped
• Carrots and broccoli, chopped
• ¼ cup water
  
• 4 Tablespoons salted butter
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 whole lemon, juiced and zested
• 2 cups low-fat sour cream
• ½ teaspoon Kosher salt, or more to taste
• Plenty of grated Parmesan cheese
• Herbs to taste
• Extra lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cook spaghetti until al dente.
3. In a skillet or saucepan, saute mushrooms with 1 Tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat until no more water comes from mushrooms, about 8 minutes.  Add leeks, carrots and broccoli and cook for 2-3 more minutes.  Add water, cover, and cook for 3 minutes, or until broccoli and carrots are fully cooked.  Remove from heat and set aside.
4. In a skillet, melt butter with remaining olive oil over LOW HEAT. When butter is melted, add minced garlic. Squeeze lemon juice into the pan. Turn off heat.
5. Add sour cream and stir mixture together. Add lemon zest and salt. Taste, then add more salt if necessary. Mix in vegetables.  Pour mixture over drained spaghetti and stir together, then pour spaghetti into an oven-safe dish.
6. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t bake too long or the pasta will dry out.)
7. When you remove it from the oven, squeeze a little more lemon juice over the top. Top generously with Parmesan cheese, then herbs. Give it a final squeeze of lemon juice at the end.
8. Serve with crusty French bread and a simple green salad.

Notes:
I used part of a bag of carrots and broccoli designed for stir fry use from the produce section of the grocery store, so I don't have a precise amount in the ingredients.  I also only had unsalted butter, so I used around 1 teaspoon of salt instead of ½ teaspoon. I put the dish in the refrigerator once I put it in the oven-safe dish and did the baking step later in the day, and I probably should have increased the baking time more than I did (I did 19 minutes for the first step), but it still tasted good. :)  And finally, the original recipe called for chopped flat-leaf parsley on top, but I'm not a huge fan of parsley so I used boquet garni from penzeys.com instead.