Ingredients
- 12 oz of pasta – I used penne
- 1 veggie bouillon cube
- 10 oz of cherry tomatoes – chopped in half
- 10 oz of spinach – roughly chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic minced
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 12 kalamata olives – roughly chopped ( i substituted cooked chorizo cubes)
- 2 oz of parmesan cheese – finely grated
- 8 twists of black pepper
- a pinch of salt
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add one bouillon cube.
- While the water is coming to a boil, prep and chop your cherry tomatoes and spinach. Mince garlic. Roughly chop olives and grate cheese.
- When water comes to a boil, add pasta and cook as per package instructions.
- While pasta is cooking, add 1 tbs of olive oil and 1 minced clove garlic to a large sauté pan and cook for 30 seconds over medium high heat until briefly cooked – stirring the whole time so garlic doesn’t burn. You want to remove the raw garlic edge, but leave the garlic heat
- Add chopped spinach to the sauté pan a bit at a time. As it cooks down, continue to add spinach until all spinach has been added to the pan. Once spinach has wilted down, remove spinach to a large bowl. There shouldn’t be a lot of water in the bottom of the pan, but if there is then strain it off.
- Add 1 tbs olive oil to the sauté pan, add 2 cloves minced garlic and cook briefly (30 seconds). Add cherry tomatoes, black pepper and a pinch of salt to the pan and cook for 3 minutes over medium high heat until tomatoes cook down and release their juices. Add cherry tomatoes to cooked spinach in the bowl
- When pasta is done, strain and add to the bowl with cherry tomatoes and spinach. Add chopped olives and 2/3 of parmesan cheese. Toss to combine. Sprinkle remaining parmesan cheese over the top of the pasta and serve.
Method
I know, I know, this sounds too worthy for words. May as well sign up for raw food and no fun. But hey, its Monday so it's meat-free and it's early september and completely to my surprise all the cherry tomato plants I have grown from seed have survived and are now laden with ripe fruit. So what to do with them? I also have a bag of spinach in the fridge.
Step forward Mr Google and produce this recipe. So on the nothing to lose principle I go for it. The original has olives in it. Firstly I didnt have any, secondly the Offspring aren't really into them, so I decided to leave them out. I thought I ought to replace the salty kick though so I am afraid, dear reader, that I cubed up some chorizo I happened to have, fried it off and added it instead of the olives. Spoils the meat-free vibe, but only just!
The result was I found out the two youngest don't like spinach, one of them also tomatoes. The Eldest and I loved it though, and I would cook it again if I have a similar glut - or if you have a packet of over-ripening cherry tomatoes in the fridge.