Stove Top Pasta - One Cook In The Kitchen
- Dec 9, 2015
- 4 min read
Cooking for one? Try this quick and easy deliciously light sauce full of fresh flavors and ingredients. Spinach, mushrooms, olives, tomatoes, & basil. Yum!
This recipe is awesome because it’s kind of like choose-your-own-adventure pasta. This is a great quick and easy deliciously light sauce full of fresh flavors and ingredients that are super easy to find. I like to add spinach, mushrooms, and green or black olives, but you can add any assortment of veggies you’d like (think asparagus or broccoli). Be aware though, denser veggies take longer to cook.
A couple notes before you start:
If you’re using linguine, you’ll need a pot deep enough for the pasta to be fully submerged in the water once it starts to cook. (Confession: I’ve used a tiny pot before and it worked just fine because I had plenty of water and kept pushing the pasta down with the wooden spoon until it was completely submerged.) It’s very important to have enough water! Oh, and please don’t break the linguine – not unless you want my grandmother’s hand to come out of the pasta pot and smack you.
Grab yourself a large pan, preferably with deep sides. You will be putting the pasta in here after it’s cooked along with your sauce, so you want to have plenty of space.
Be sure to take a moment to indulge in the smell of your home. Heck yeah, you did that!
The measurements are approximate, so don’t be afraid if you add a little too much or a bit too little. The more you cook, the better you get at knowing how much is the right amount.
This dish is surprisingly easy, but as my mother always says, “In order to try something new, you need to be willing to throw it out!” If all else fails, there’s no shame in ordering pizza and trying again next time.
The beer is for me, not the pasta.
Servings: 4
Prep & Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 garlic cloves 3 good sized tomatoes (I like the ones on the vine the best) Salt Black pepper Small palmfull of fresh parsley 3-4 fresh basil leaves 15 medium green or black olives (or add both; it’s your adventure!) 3-4 white mushrooms A big handful of spinach leaves (they shrink way down) Linguine (you could swap this for your favorite pasta) A drink of choice… for the cook, of course
Start boiling the water for pasta first. (You can add a few pinches of salt to the water here, but you also don’t have to. I don’t, but some people swear by it. It’s your preference.)
On a separate burner, grab your big pan and add the oil (I like to write my initials with the oil). You want there to be juuuust enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Don’t go crazy here, the tomatoes add juice and you’ll be adding some of the pasta water later. Start to warm the oil on medium heat.
While the pan is getting hot, take the skin off the garlic. Then, using the side of the knife, press down on the garlic to break it open – my mom says this lets out the juices – then chop small. Hover your hand over the oil, if your palm feels the warmth, add the garlic and move it around with your wooden spoon. The garlic should not get brown and your oil should not pop. If it does, your heat is too high. Turn it down to just below medium.
While the garlic is sautéing, chop up the tomatoes, the olives, the mushrooms, and the parsley all separately. Large pieces of tomato are fine, they will cook down in the pan. Chop up your mushrooms and olives into bite sized pieces. Finely chop the parsley.
Take a second to smell the garlic cooking in the oil. That’s the smell of home.
Add the tomatoes to the pan and stir around a bit. Season with about 3 pinches of salt and about 10 cranks on the pepper mill. Stir it all up. Let the tomatoes start to get soft.
Add your chopped veggies and the parsley to the pan and then rip up the spinach and basil and throw that in.
While this deliciousness is cooking, wash your cutting board, your knife, and any other things you no longer need. Wipe down your counter and take another second to smell your home and sip your drink. Mmm.
Stir your tomatoes. You can use the wooden spoon to break some of them apart now that they’re nice and soft. If the sauce starts to boil a little, that’s ok. Keep cooking until the tomatoes are chunky and soupy. If they start really boiling and popping, turn the heat down.
Almost done!
When your pasta water starts boiling, add half the box of pasta, about half a pound, and stir until all the pasta is submerged in the water.
Once the tomatoes are soupy, turn the heat down low to simmer.
When the pasta is al dente, or still a little hard in the middle (it will continue to cook with the sauce), take the pot off the heat and slowly start to pour the water out into the sink. Be careful not to pour the pasta out! When there is just a little water left with the pasta, about a cup of water, pour all of that into the pan with the sauce. Mix it all up. While that’s cooking, put some soap in your pasta pot and run some hot water. The starch from the pasta will thank you when you go to clean it.
Keep turning the pasta in the sauce until all the pasta is covered. Add a few pinches of salt and a couple more cranks of pepper and stir.
Hello, beautiful.
And now, you’re ready to serve! If you want, you can add some grated cheese to each serving or some red pepper if you want a little heat. Once the remaining pasta is cool, put in a container and you’ll have plenty for leftovers to reheat in the microwave!
You can have it anyway you want when there’s only One Cook in the Kitchen!
You did it! Enjoy!
Have a good recipe for one? Or did you try to make this one? We want to hear from you! Comment below or contact us here!
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