MoFo Day 3: Quick and Easy Spinach Pasta

Hello again! Thanks for joining me on day three for Vegan Month of food! Today’s prompt is; Quick, easy and delicious. I’m going to share with you my girls favorite pasta dish that they ask for multiple times a week. Normally I don’t measure anything and simply adjust taste as I go so feel free to change whatever to suit your needs. And to be honest I’d have added at least an extra cup of pasta if we hadn’t been out. This made two  servings though it could be stretched to three had I made side dishes or had soup to go with it. My 10 and 7 year old each had a plate like you see below.

 

 

Spinach Pasta 

~2 servings alone or 3 with side dishes

Ingredients:

2 cups pasta

We like to use cavatappi, elbows or gemelli but you can use any. Unless you are cooking for two people you should increase pasta accordingly; if using cavatappi 1c per person.

1.5c frozen spinach

Sauce:

One large onion (yellow, white, or sweet) or about 1.5 cups  diced

¼ tsp Black Pepper

½ tsp. Salt

1tsp.  Garlic powder

1 to 1 ½ Tbsp. Sweet Paprika

¼ c. water from the boiling pasta or more as needed

Butter or oil; I used the spoonful of earth balance you can see in the 3^rd collage picture

Method:

Depending on the amount of noodles bring the frozen spinach and necessary amount of water in an appropriately sized pot to a boil. Add Pasta and cook per package instructions.  Strain with a fine holes strainer so you don’t lose your spinach down the drain.

 

Dice onions and start sautéing on medium high while water comes to a boil and the pasta cooks. Adjust oil/butter as needed you don’t want the onions sticking but you don’t want them soupy. Cook until fully cooked and most of the onions are getting nicely browned. Reduce heat to low add liquid from the boiling pasta. It’s okay if stray spinach finds its way in; do try to avoid bigger pieces, add remainder of sauce ingredients mix very well. 

You want it a bit gravy like but not too runny (see second picture below) if you cooked the onions in a large enough pan you can simply dump the drained pasta into the onion mixture mix well and serve or you can add the onion to the pasta I refer the first way since you get all the flavor clinging to the bottom of the pan BUT honestly it doesn’t matter which way you do it.

Adjust to taste and enjoy!!

I measured out the spices  like I normally would thinking we had more pasta If I had made the full  3-4 servings I’d have used 2c. Frozen spinach, a full 2c.of diced onion and probably more salt, an extra shake of garlic powder, a touch more oil, and more water from the pasta to make the sauce work with the quantity of pasta, but I wouldn’t double everything.

Pasta with peas

This isn't a pretty dish, but it reminds me of being a kid. I'm 1/4 Sicilian my father is half his father 100% . My father's father passed away when my dad was a very young boy, because of that my predominantly Prussian and French grandmother never got into the habit of making his families dishes but this is one of the ones that stuck around.

Simple, affordable and filling a widowed mother of 4 working 3 jobs this was a staple.  My grandma was an amazing cook food rarely came out of a can unless it was one she put up from her garden herself. This was an exception, apparently shelling and canning a million little peas wasn't her thing.  I don't blame her, I wouldn't want to do it either. 

My partner will not eat this, but the girls and I love it. I'm going to attempt to make this with frozen peas as well as oil free. I'm going to half the batch and I'll update later on if it works.

Pasta with Peas

What you'll need:
1 large potato peeled and diced between a 1/4 & 1/2 inch ( yukon gold or kennibic if you can)
1/2 - 1 small-medium onion  sliced into thin strips
1/2Tbsp(1 and 1/2 tsp) oil
1, 15oz can or reduced or no sodium peas undrained
1 cup elbow macaroni(or other small pasta, shells, ditilini etc)
1 cup water
salt and pepper to taste
simple smooth pasta sauce(optional)

Add onions, potato and oil into  sauce pan and on med heat cook until potatoes and onions start browning be careful not to burn ( about ten min). Add a splash of water or broth as needed to unstick from the pan.

Add peas and their juices bring to simmer for 5minutes, add water and bring to boil, Add your pasta and reduce to a steady simmer. You can add salt and pepper now if you want I like to  wait till the end personally.

 You may need to add a touch more water  so that everything is just barely submerged. Cooking length depends on the pasta for my elbows it was 9-11 min you want cook to just shy of done so I cooked for 9 minutes on the low simmer when the timer goes off give a stir turn heat to high cover for about 30 seconds turn off the heat and let it finish cooking on its own. I usually let it go 5-10 min  while I'm tossing a side salad, washing some fruit for dessert  pouring drinks etc.

Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. We had fresh dug yukon golds and I didn't need to add anything but if its lacking add pasta sauce a couple spoonfuls at a time until it suits your tastes and add some Almond Parmesan (this is the first and only recipe we have tried use whatever one you want) or store bought alternative "Parmesan".  We didn't use any this last time, we keep it simple on occasion.