Last Thursday in an attempt to both a) self-medicate and b) pay homage to the great Jersey Shore, Joe and I stopped by A.G. Ferrari and picked up lots of Italian goodies to snack on.
The next day, we had to go for broke and indulge two nights in a row, so the leftovers from our Jersey Shore binge — namely sun dried tomato pesto, sun dried tomatoes and Piave cheese — became the stars of a quick Friday night pasta dish. This is another great example of MacGyvering something together into a totally scrumptious meal (where are your requests, people?). While my pasta dish was pretty simple, one could easily add in grilled chicken, or cooked broccoli, white beans, or any other type of leafy green. Just use whatever you have laying around.
I present to you gemelli with sun dried tomatoes and spinach. The recipe is super easy.
The Cast of Characters:
- 3/4 lb tubular pasta. I used gemelli. Penne or rotini or farfalle or orecchiette would all work too. Even though the latter two are definitely not tube shaped.
- Extra virgin olive oil. Two tablespoons.
- Red chili flakes. One teaspoon if you like a kick. Less if you don’t.
- Garlic. Two cloves. Sliced or chopped.
- Oil-packed sun dried tomatoes. About a cups worth. Chopped. And don’t you dare let the excess oil go to waste.
- 1 medium heirloom tomato. Diced.
- 1/2-3/4 cup prepared sun dried tomato pesto. If you have closer to a 1/2 cup, that’s okay, you can thin it out with pasta water and it’ll work fine.
- 2 cups loosely packed baby spinach.
- Any sharp, aged, grate-able cheese. Think Reggiano. We also incorporated some leftover Piave.
Get a big pot of water boiling and season it heavily with kosher salt. Dump in the pasta. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes less than what the package says you should do.
Combine the olive oil, chili flakes and garlic in a large saute pan. Heat this up over medium heat, allowing the oil to infuse with garlic and spice.
Dump in the fresh tomato and sun dried tomatoes. Stir the mixture around and let it cook for a couple minutes. Then throw in the pesto. I like to fill the container with some water, shake it around, then pour that out into the pan as well. No sense in letting any of it go to waste, now is there?
Using a spider, transfer the nearly al dente pasta into the saute pan. Toss to coat the pasta with the pesto and all the other goodies. Throw in the spinach and keep tossing so the leaves wilt. If the sauce looks a little tight, add some pasta water to the mixture and keep tossing. Grate cheese over the whole thing and toss again.
Bowl it up. And sprinkle more cheese on top for good luck.
Filed under: Cheese!, Food, Italian, MacGyver Me This, Pasta/Grains, Recipes Tagged: | food cooking pasta sundried tomatoes
