Bowties With Sugar Snaps, Lemon and Ricotta

As sugar snap season comes and goes all to quickly for my addicted tastes, consider this a template for any green vegetable — segments of asparagus, green beans, snow pea pods, or whole sweet peas — that you think might enjoy some lemon/ricotta/parmesan/salt/pepper treatment. Most of these other vegetables will benefit from 2 to 3 minutes boiling time, so add them earlier in the pasta cooking process.

Ingredients:

• Salt for pasta water
• 1 pound sugar snaps
• 1 pound dried pasta bowties
• 1/2 cup (about 1 ounce) finely grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
• Glug, then drizzle, of olive oil
• Coarse or fine sea salt for sprinkling
• Ground black pepper or red pepper flakes
• Juice of 1 lemon, plus more to taste
• Few leaves of mint, slivered
• 1 cup ricotta; use fresh if you can find or have motivation to make it