Friday, January 19, 2007

Quick and Simple Pasta with Spinach

Living in New York City, working and trying to make it to the gym every night are not conducive to making elaborate dinners. Last night I was craving well,Italian style carbs; I wanted pizza or pasta.

I keep some staples in my apartment such as olive oil, garlic, Parmesan cheese and whole wheat pasta. So I decided to send my roommate an email, see if she wanted to have dinner with me and asked her to pick up some baby spinach on the way home.



The ingredients I used for this dish were as follows:
2-4 tbsp of olive oil (the more you use the better it tastes!)
6 large cloves are garlic thinly sliced
1 large tomato roughly chopped (found this in the fridge and decided to use it)
1 tsp of freshly black ground pepper (more or less depending on preference)
1 heaping teaspoon of red pepper flakes (more or less depending on level of heat desired)
salt to taste
1 package of baby spinach
1 package of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest thin spaghetti
Parmesan cheese to garnish

First things first. Put the water on to boil for the pasta (no need to explain how to cook pasta I'm sure you already know!) You should have it cooked at the same time your sauce is finished) A dish like this that is so simple takes longer to cook the pasta than make the sauce.

Next I heated up the oil in the pan, then put in the garlic, pepper, red pepper flakes and some salt. Then I sauteed the garlic but was sure not to burn it. Once the garlic was soft I put in the tomatoes until they softened a bit. When the pasta was done I drained it, put the spinach on top of the sauce, and threw the pasta in on top of the spinach. The spinach will wilt almost immediately. Turn the stove off after you mix everything together so that your spinach does not get overcooked and brown looking.



All in all it probably takes about 20-25 minutes to make, the perfect quick dinner for someone without hours to cook. If you wanted to add some protein you could grill up a piece of chicken breast and put it in at the end. I served this pasta with a generous amount of Parmesan cheese, especially since it is a drier sauce.

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