what I ate last: spaghetti with spinach and chickpeas
In need of warming, comforting and tasty food after a hard day's work, I made the above - one of my favorite pasta dishes, and one that falls into the all-important category of 'sauce takes as long to make as pasta takes to cook'. I've streamlined the making of this dish into an extremely efficient process.
Chop an onion and plenty of garlic, put in a frying pan with olive oil and a pinch of oregano to soften. Put a couple of bags/big bunches of spinach [this makes enough for 3/4 but the sauce keeps well in the fridge for a couple of days and I've even frozen it before] into the pasta pan with a little water on high heat, steam quickly, then remove and put the pasta water onto boil. Drain a can of chickpeas and rinse. Put the spaghetti in to boil and stir the chickpeas in with the onions. Chop the spinach roughly. At about the time when you are impatient enough to test the pasta, although it quite clearly isn't done yet, add the spinach to the chickpea mixture and stir. By the time the spaghetti is done, the flavours of the sauce will have combined just enough and you're done. The key to this dish is plenty of garlic and plenty of olive oil. Ideally it would be finished with a good swig of extra-virgin just before serving, although Piggly-Wiggly doesn't provide such luxuries so tonight the basic oil had to do. It's also really good finished with some fresh chopped oregano, and sometimes I add diced fresh tomato right at the end too.
This always reminds me of home - my mother makes a fantastic version of this, and in the summer with the fresh tomato and oregano from our garden, it's great for an outdoor lunch with some green salad. In the winter with a glass of red wine, it is just what I crave as instant satisfaction.
As an aside, my first order from Amazon's food section arrived today - some dried porcini mushrooms. I'm a happy gal.
Chop an onion and plenty of garlic, put in a frying pan with olive oil and a pinch of oregano to soften. Put a couple of bags/big bunches of spinach [this makes enough for 3/4 but the sauce keeps well in the fridge for a couple of days and I've even frozen it before] into the pasta pan with a little water on high heat, steam quickly, then remove and put the pasta water onto boil. Drain a can of chickpeas and rinse. Put the spaghetti in to boil and stir the chickpeas in with the onions. Chop the spinach roughly. At about the time when you are impatient enough to test the pasta, although it quite clearly isn't done yet, add the spinach to the chickpea mixture and stir. By the time the spaghetti is done, the flavours of the sauce will have combined just enough and you're done. The key to this dish is plenty of garlic and plenty of olive oil. Ideally it would be finished with a good swig of extra-virgin just before serving, although Piggly-Wiggly doesn't provide such luxuries so tonight the basic oil had to do. It's also really good finished with some fresh chopped oregano, and sometimes I add diced fresh tomato right at the end too.
This always reminds me of home - my mother makes a fantastic version of this, and in the summer with the fresh tomato and oregano from our garden, it's great for an outdoor lunch with some green salad. In the winter with a glass of red wine, it is just what I crave as instant satisfaction.
As an aside, my first order from Amazon's food section arrived today - some dried porcini mushrooms. I'm a happy gal.
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