This light pasta dish utilizes a few simple ingredients. It’s full of tomatoey, basily, spinachy, cheesy, Mediterranean flavor. It’s packed with vegetables, but doesn’t overwhelm you with spinach flavor. It’s great as a side dish, but it’s filling enough to be a meal on its own. It’s also surprisingly quick and easy, taking only about 20 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Garlic (about 2 cloves)
• One can diced tomatoes (14.5 oz)
• Fresh basil
• Spinach
• Pasta (We used fresh tagliatelle)
• Seasoning:
  • Dry oregano
  • Italian seasoning,
  • Black pepper
  • Red pepper flakes (just a tiny bit)
  • Herb salt (a mixture of sea salt, thyme, rosemary, basil, tarragon and fennel)

Steps:

1. Dice garlic and sauté with olive oil in a stovetop pan on medium heat. Begin boiling a separate pot of salted water.
2. After sauteing the garlic for a few minutes, add the can of tomatoes. Add the dry seasonings.
3. Cut the stems and tougher parts of the fresh basil into small pieces and add. Briefly stir the ingredients together and then allow them to come to a boil (the goal is to boil off some of the excess liquid).
4. Add the rest of the whole basil leaves, stir, and allow the sauce to simmer for a few minutes (5-10 minutes).
5. When the sauce begins to thicken, cook pasta in the pot of boiling water to desired level of doneness. A few minutes before the pasta is done, add spinach to the pasta for 2-3 minutes.
6. Drain the cooked pasta and spinach and add immediately to the sauce pan. Lightly mix the noodles and spinach into the sauce before serving with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Notes and Results

• On Timing: We used fresh pasta which only required 3 or 4 minutes to cook. We added the pasta and the spinach to the boiling water at almost the same time. Boxed pasta will probably take longer to cook which will change the timing of this dish.
• Other Ingredients: Onions, mushrooms, and peppers could be incorporated into this dish. Fresh Roma tomatoes could also be used along with or instead of canned tomatoes. Additional ingredients might require more cooking time.
• Preparing this dish with one can of tomatoes provided two generous servings. The packaged tagliatelle we used was labeled 2.5 servings.