Veg Pasta in Creamy Spinach Sauce

We eat lots of pasta, almost every week, sometimes twice a week. Mainly because of the ease of cooking and because DH loves it. But he doesn't love all of them, so for example he is not a big fan of tomato based sauce in pasta so while i love pasta arrabiata for it's adjustable spiciness, but he will not mind give it a miss. 

This time i decided to use this spinach from the fridge and try pasta with spinach. I searched recipe on internet and most of them were with all fancy kind of cheese to be included for creamy spinach sauce, and neither i had all those fancy cheese in fridge nor intended to go do grocery.

So i came up with a solution, how about just make some white sauce and can add to pasta along with spinach paste ! Excellent. So that is what i did.

By this time Ashu was already done with his easy pasta, complaining it wasn't the same as i make and also there was no parsley in home !

When i was done with this  i asked him...

You can try this one, there is plenty. 

No, i had enough...actually had a lot.

Ok may be just taste it.

umm, hmmm ok. But just a little, only to taste. 

ya ya, you can take more if you like it.

After first bite. 

hmmm ya may be i can take a bit more. Ok let me just eat it.

haha, success !

So you see, it was THAT nice.

Here we go, this is what i did in my kitchen. 

Creamy Spinach Pasta

Let's collect the ingredients:

For white Sauce:

1-2 tbsp butter

1 1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp all purpose flour

2 tbsp cheese

salt to taste

For Spinach Paste:

handful of spinach (Around 1 bowl)

3-4 garlic clove

1 tsp freshly ground black papper

1 tsp freshly ground sea salt

1 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp cheese (optional)

For Pasta:

3 cups Pasta, cooked

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp garlic cut in small pieces or minced whichever way you prefer in your pasta 

1 tbsp cut red chilli

1/2 cup cut capsicum, i had a mix of green, yellow, red (optional)

Few olives, because i love them. (optional)

A few baby spinach leaves for seasoning

Let's start making Pasta:

For the white sauce :

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. 

2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes 

3. Take the pan off the heat and gradually stir in the milk to get a smooth sauce. Return to the heat and, stirring all the time, bring to the boil. 

4. Add Cheese and simmer gently until cheese has melted and sauce has thickened to your preferred consistency. Season with salt.

For Spinach Paste:

1. Mix everything together and blend them.

For assembling pasta:

1. Heat olive oil in a pan. Add Garlic and red chilli. Saute them for a minute.

2. Add capsicum and olives. This step is really optional, i added them as i had them in fridge and wanted to use them !

3. Add spinach paste and white sauce and mix well.

4. Add pasta and mix well till it's all evenly covered.

5. Season with some fresh spinach leaves. 

Your delicious creamy spinach sauce veg pasta are ready ! Enjoy !!

Quick and Easy Pasta

Pasta is kind of staple food in our house. When we can't think of anything to cook, we make pasta.

I basically love different pasta sauce but DH is not that eager on them. His favourite has been pesto pasta. So at times i make half with pesto and half with arrabbiata sauce.

Recently we tried pasta without any sauce at a pasta joint, not that it was for the first time but this one sure did taste a bit different and more to our liking. So i took a detailed look at ingredients list.

First time i tried to make it at home, it still tasted a bit different. Yesterday i gave it a try again, adamant to copy that taste we had, and success!

You can take whole wheat brown pasta and can do it even healthier !

Here is a recipe. Quick and Easy.

Let's collect Ingredients:

2 cup - Pasta, boiled with a little olive oil and salt

1 small bunch Parsley - cut finely

5-6 Small Red Chilies, cut. (Or as many depending on heat that you can bear)

5-6 cloves Garlic - cut. (We like our pasta extra garlicky)

Black Pepper to taste

Salt to taste

2-3 tsp olive oil

1 tsp - garlic oil - optional

3 tsp Pine nuts - optional

Pasta Cheese for garnishing - optional

Let's make Pasta:

1. Follow the boiling instructions of pasta as on the packaging. Once done, drain it and keep aside.

2. Heat Olive oil in a pan. Add cut red chilies and garlic. Sauté for a minute.

3. Add Pine nuts and garlic oil if you prefer.

4. Add boiled pasta to that. Mix well.

5. Sprinkle finely cut parsley, black pepper and sea salt. Mix well.

Your quick and easy pasta is ready to eat. Serve hot garnishing with cheese.