Summer’s Garden Fresh Pasta

Welcome back to my kitchen! I’m whipping up something light and refreshing for y’all. Sautéed spinach and baby tomatoes pair with Kalamata olives and a couple different cheeses in my Garden Fresh Pasta to deliver big flavor. You can stir it up and serve it right away, but it gets even better if you chill it overnight. Come on, I’ll walk you through it!

 

Summer’s Garden Fresh Pasta

12 ounces of your favorite pasta
1 cup chicken broth
½ bunch green onions, diced
10 ounces of baby plum tomatoes – halved
10 ounces of spinach
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 cloves minced garlic
1 jar Kalamata olives
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 cup feta cheese
2-3 tablespoons Italian dressing
Coarse black pepper and salt

We’ll begin by cooking 12 ounces of pasta per package instructions in a pot of boiling water along with a cup of chicken broth. While the water is coming to a boil, we’ll wash ten ounces of fresh spinach, and give it a rough chop. We’ll give the green onions and Kalamata olives a rough chop while we’re add it. (FYI, y’all, you don’t have to chop your spinach but I think delivers more flavor throughout the dish if you do.)

Now, we’ll add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to our cast iron skillet along with a couple tablespoons of minced garlic. We’ll saute this briefly, maybe a minute, just to let the garlic infuse the oil– but don’t let it burn. Then we’ll add our rough chopped spinach and stir until it wilts (cooks down) before transferring the spinach with a slotted spoon to our serving bowl. We’ll add another tablespoon of oil to the pan along withe the rest of the garlic, stir a few seconds and add our baby tomatoes. We’ll season this with salt and black pepper and cook for a few minutes until our tomatoes give in and start puckering.

Puckering? What is this puckering, she speaks of? Sorry about that. It just means wrinkling up!

Now, we’ll add these babies to our serving bowl of spinach along with the cooked and drained pasta and we’re almost there! Stir in a jar of chopped Kalamata olives, chopped green onions, a ½ cup of parmesan cheese and just enough bottled Italian dressing to wet the dish, 2-3 tablespoons should do it. Use the feta cheese to top your pasta right before you serve it.

That’s Summer’s Garden Fresh Pasta and it’s mighty good eating from the All Things Southern kitchen to yours~

(P.S. I need y’all to trust me. I had the prettiest pic of this dish on my iPhone. That would be the iPhone that took a refreshing dip in the lake Wednesday afternoon. Said phone was rescued by the number one son, but forty-eight hours of rice did not bring it back to life. Pouty Face. And that, is why you have a stock photo this week!)