Pasta with arugula, lentils, and olives

In summer, we don't always feel like cooking, partly because it's hot and partly because we want to enjoy our free time and the outdoors. But we still need to eat! A good idea is to prepare one-pot, tasty, and complete meals!

The combination of grains and legumes is excellent because it allows us to prepare a nutritionally complete yet light dish. Among legumes, lentils are particularly low in fat (only 3%), making them perfect for hot days when we're craving light fare. Another great advantage of lentils is that they don't need soaking, unlike other legumes, so we can cook them anytime!

But now let's get to work! Let's prepare a one-dish meal with organic pasta . of Senatore Cappelli durum wheat.

• 160g artisanal Senatore Cappelli pasta
• 4-5 small courgettes with the flower
• 4 tablespoons small green lentils
• 2 tablespoons pitted olives
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• Arugula (a small handful)
• 1-2 tablespoons shoyu (organic soy sauce)
• Garlic

• First, let's prepare the lentils . Rinse about half a cup of dried lentils under running water, add double the volume of water, season with a few bay leaves, sage, a tied sprig of rosemary, and a small piece (the size of a postage stamp) of kombu seaweed, which helps make the lentils more digestible. Cover and cook for about 40 minutes, until the liquid is completely absorbed. Season with 1-2 tablespoons of shoyu at the end of cooking.
• Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, add salt and, when the lentils are two-thirds cooked, cook the pasta .
• Meanwhile, clean and slice the courgettes diagonally . Separately, cut the flowers into strips.
• In a pan, heat a generous tablespoon of oil with the garlic and quickly sauté the courgettes with a pinch of salt, browning them. Add the roughly chopped olives.
• In another small pan, heat the remaining oil and sauté the flower strips for a few seconds .
• Drain the pasta and toss with the lentils, zucchini, and flowers, and garnish with some finely chopped arugula. Et voilà! Serve immediately and enjoy... bon appetit!

• Toast a handful of pine nuts to give the dish an even more aromatic and (why not) Ligurian flavour!
• To make this recipe even quicker (just the pasta cooking time), make sure you have some cooked lentils in the refrigerator. Then, when you make them, make a little extra; they'll keep for 3-4 days.