Simple, Weeknight Pasta

[Cynical-Chick]

So my mom found a Crisco Olive Oil ad in one of her magazines. It had no recipe, so we made our own.

Penne pasta
Spinach
Feta crumbles
Red onion
Chopped mushroom

Cook pasta, add ingredients in frying pan, cook, cover with olive oil.

:yum:

[vremya]

Yum! Did you cook the spinach before you added it?

[Cynical-Chick]

Yeah.

[vremya]

I love spinach! :yum:

I bet you could leave the pasta out and it would still be yummy.

[Artemis Entreri]

My super easy pasta
There is hardly any prep and it's alot better than ragu and noodles.
I keep these ingredients on hand for when I don't have anything thawed out, don't want to go to the store, ect.
1 Pack Johnsonville Italian Sausage (frozen)
1 bottle of Classico Pesto (basil or sun-dried tomato)
Spaghetti noodles (spinach and thin spaghetti, they have the same cook time 6-8min)

Take the frozen sausages and cut into thick slices ( 1 sausage per person)
Cook sausage slices in a non-stick pan while the noodles are boil.
Mix in a few spoon fulls of pesto to the cooked and drained noodles, toss the noodles with a fork to get even coverage.
Top with the pan fried sausage and enjoy.

Anyone can make this and not only is it tasty but it has a really nice presentation too. The sausage skins hold their shape so you get these nice looking "medallions" on a bed of white and green noodles lightly coated with a very tasty pesto. I like to throw some mushrooms in the pan with the sausage if I have any.

[Megatron]

I fucking hate feta... :puke:

[Cynical-Chick]

Add in some pine nuts.

[wildernesse]

We made a springtime pasta salad last week with farfalle, asparagus, and peas, with an olive oil and herbs dressing. We made the pasta, sauteed the veggies and then tossed it all together with some olive oil, lemon juice, and whatever random herbs we had in the pantry.

Peas and pasta turned out to be pretty good together, so we're going to try a different permutation this week. I don't think I had ever had fresh peas before, so it has been fun to find out a new food that I like.

[Qingdai]

What? Never had fresh peas, my my.

My simple pasta recipe.

1 pound spiral pasta, boil, drain, coat in olive oil.

Add (as on hand) dry oregano, fresh chopped rosemary, pre-grated parmesan cheese, bits of sun dried tomato. Liberally coat.

I used to make the herb/cheese/tomato mix ahead and take it camping with dry pasta.

[wildernesse]

Well, where I grew up (central GA), I think peas would have had to be started earlier than my parents usually would have planted their garden. My grandmother and people from her generation might have had them in their 4 season gardens, but I don't recall them. Peas as I knew them came from cans. It is a shame.

(I had a similar conversation about cherries here a few years back and the fact that I had never had fresh cherries until I was in college. Cherries don't grow well in central Georgia, and I think that produce--and groceries in general--were much more limited when I was little than it is now.)

[Cynical-Chick]

It's thread necromancy week? Cool!

Cook a box of elbow macaroni. Cook some broccoli and season it (I use red pepper flakes, garlic powder, basil, and parsley).

Cook some butter with flour. Add in parmesan and cheddar (shredded), and slowly add milk to even out the texture. *I would add more seasonings here; the seasoning on the broc wasn't enough oomph for me*

Chop up some chicken breast; s&p and cook.

Throw it all together and bake.