Thursday, April 2, 2009

Easy Weekday Meal 1: Spinach and Ricotta Pasta

This is one of my favourite speedy meals for when I want something tasty but don't feel like spending ages in the kitchen. It's so easy and really yummy! And, best of all, you'll have dinner on the table in under 10 minutes...

What you need
- A small to medium tub of fresh ricotta from your local deli
- Fresh Lasagne Sheets cut into wide strips (or fresh pappardelle if you can get it)
- A couple of big handfuls of baby spinach
- Pine nuts
- Butter
- A pinch of nutmeg
- Sea Salt and freshly ground black pepper




What to do with it all
Bring a large saucepan full of water to the boil. Once it's reached a rolling boil then get a good knob of butter melting away in a small frying pan on another burner.

Once your butter is starting to get nice and frothy, pop a handful of pine nuts in and stir fairly frequently so that they get a bit of colour but don't burn. At the same time, throw your pasta into the large saucepan.

While your pasta cooks (it will only take a couple of minutes) add your baby spinach to the butter and pine nuts and cook until it wilts. Add a pinch of nutmeg, stir through, then take it off the heat.

Drain your pasta and return it immediately to the large saucepan. Tip the contents of the frypan in with the pasta and give a good stir with some tongs.

Crumble your ricotta into the saucepan and mix through, so that it's well distributed and there are no huge chunks of cheese. Season with sea salt and pepper to taste.

Dinner is served...bellisimo!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds great, will try it thanks.