Author Archives: cups + spoonfuls

Garlic Butter Pasta with Spinach, Lemon + Parmesan

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Our CSA started this week and I am so excited. We first joined a CSA last summer and we are hooked. I love picking up our share every week. The fruit and vegetables still have bits of earth on them. They smell like earth and the colors cannot be replicated in paintings or photography. The bits of dirt remind me of where this food came from and I like that.

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I love color of the asparagus tips. The purple is just coming through. They look so delicate. Asparagus works with so many dishes and it is one of the few vegetables my kids will eat. I wanted to work them into the easy pasta dish I made but decided to hold off. I’ll save them for the next night when I grill chicken which the kids won’t eat. When I watch them ignore their chicken but eat the asparagus, dipped in a vinaigrette of course, I won’t feel like I completely lost the dinner battle.

So, I decided to make an easy pasta dish with the spinach we received this week. This pasta dish comes together quickly which is perfect for a weeknight. The spinach was a beautiful bright green and covered in dirt. After a good rinsing it was ready for sautéing.

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I like to have a glass of wine or a beer when I cook. Also, I usually turn on a half hour show for the kids to watch so I can relax a bit. Cooking dinner with kids underfoot is miserable. It raises the stress level which is so not necessary. Things are stressful as is, so why not be kind to myself?  Once I hear the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song come on the stress lowers a bit and then I have a sip of a beer or a glass wine and I am well one my way to getting dinner on the table.

_KH10049Once the greens are sautéing, I chop up my herbs and zest the lemon. The pasta water is almost at a boil.

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I used a combination of rosemary and thyme. I love lemon zest in pasta and a pinch of red pepper flakes adds a slight spice to the dish. The parmesan adds a perfect saltiness but who am I kidding? I could parmesan on anything.

Bubba liked this meal. The kids requested their pasta plain which I obliged because not every battle, every night needs to be fought.

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Garlic Butter Pasta with Spinach, Lemon and Parmesan

serves 2-3

adapted from Naturally Ella

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic

2 sprigs rosemary finely chopped

zest of 1 lemon

3 handfuls spinach

8 ounces of pasta

2 sprigs of thyme for garnish

a pinch of red pepper flakes

½ cup parmesan

Directions

Heat butter over medium-low heat in a large sauce pan. Mince garlic and add to pan. Sauté  until fragrant but not brown, about 1-2 minutes.  Add rosemary and cook for an additional minute or so. Add rinsed and dried spinach, lemon zest and a pinch of red pepper flakes to butter mixture and cook until spinach is wilted.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until tender. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking liquid. Add pasta to spinach mixture . If pasta seems dry, add a small bit of reserved cooking liquid until the pasta seems less dry.

Sprinkle parmesan on top and toss to combine. Serve with an extra parmesan and a bit of fresh thyme. Enjoy!

A Riff On A BLT

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“Perhaps home is not a place but some irrevocable condition.” – James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

We spent the weekend unpacking boxes. We took out the essentials for sleeping and eating and set up the kitchen. We reassembled the kids rooms so they felt like the rooms they slept in for the last 6 years. We spent the weekend desperately trying to feel at ease in a place that does not feel like home.

As I write this post I struggle to understand why leaving our house of 6 years is so hard. I passed it on purpose during my run the other day and almost burst into tears. What is a home really? If a home is really just the people I will be ok, right?

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I think I started a home when I married Bubba almost 7 years ago. Our home grew when we had Charlotte and 3 years later Graham. I think home is a group of people seeking comfort in each other. The house, the walls shelter us. The stuff that we think we need to make a house a home add to our daily comfort or drive us insane.

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After an exhausting weekend of unpacking and adjusting to our new surroundings, I had to make an easy and comforting dinner. A BLT screams comfort to us so I made one with a few twists.

I picked up a loaf of fresh sour dough bread from our local bread shop, Mamadou’s Artisan Bakery. (www.mamadousartisanbakery.com) I like their sourdough because the flavor is not overwhelming. I am not a fan of strong sourdough flavor. I grabbed a locally grown tomato, some bacon, blue cheese, avocado, Romain lettuce, roast turkey and Stonewall Kitchen’s Fig and Ginger Jam. I splurged on the jam but I figure I can use it for marinades as well. The jam adds a nice sweetness which works great the saltiness of the bacon. The turkey is not necessary here but it does work well with the rest of the ingredients. The avocado gives a nice creamy texture. and the blue cheese highlights the sweetness of the jam and saltiness of the bacon. I threw the meal together in no time. We enjoyed the blts with a icy cold beers. Yum! The kids had milk of course.

BLT with Blue Cheese, Avocado and  Fig+ Ginger Jam

Inspired by Two Peas and Their Pod

Ingredients

1 loaf of fresh sourdough bread

1 tomato, thinly sliced

Romaine lettuce, washed and dried

1 avocado, pitted and sliced

crumbled blue cheese

1 lb bacon

1/4-1/2 lb of roast turkey depending on how much you want to use on the sandwiches (optional)

1 jar of Stonewall Kitchen’s Fig+ Ginger Jam

Directions:

Cook bacon on medium heat until it reaches desired crispness and drain on a plate covered with a paper towel. To assemble the sandwiches spread a tablespoon of jam on each piece of sliced sourdough bread. Add bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado and a couple of slices of roast turkey if using. Sprinkle with a good amount of crumbled blue cheese. Slice in half and enjoy!