Yes, my name really is spelled that way.

11/17/2010

dinner in about 5 minutes.

I needed to have dinner in a hurry before a recent museum event.  I make the below pasta dish fairly often, normally with whole wheat penne.  But this time, I was even more pressed and made it with whole wheat gnocchi.  The difference?  A 10-12 minute cooking time for the penne vs. a 2-3 minute cooking time for the gnocchi.  The thing that takes the most time is getting the water to boil!  

pasta with greens, sundried tomatoes and goat cheese.
3/4 cup pasta (gnocchi, penne, rigatoni, fusili, etc.)
1/2 tbsp. goat cheese (about)
2-3 tbsp. sundried tomatoes (I get the julienned ones in a jar at Trader Joe's)
1/2 cup spinach (fresh or if frozen, reduce to 1/3 cup & squeeze water out) or any darker leafy green, even salad greens, just not romaine, butter or iceberg lettuce.
drizzle olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
 Boil water for pasta.  In a bowl, add greens, tomatoes, olive oil, goat cheese, salt and pepper.  Once the pasta has finished cooking, reserve 2 tbsp. pasta water, drain and add hot pasta (do not rinse) to the bowl.  Let the pasta cook down the greens and melt the goat cheese (about a minute).  Toss to combine.  
Note:  this also keeps really well for lunch the next day.  Sometimes I will double and save the rest in an airtight container.  No need for parmigiano on top - the goat cheese becomes its own cream sauce!

1 comment: