Sun Dried Tomato Pasta

Hallo! I am back after a hectic month and oh, how I’ve missed cooking and enjoying dinner at home. With a crazy work launch, moving (woot!) and my sister’s wedding, November was a very good but busy five weeks. Dinners for the past month have consisted of quick & microwaveable meals, pasta from the can (I know, for shame..), dumplings that just need a quick boil or simple takeout.

You can probably tell from my posts that pasta is one of my favorite dishes. Why? Because you can do SO many different things with it. Make it healthy with a light toss of salt, pepper, herbs, veggies and olive oil, toss in a little a tomato sauce, make it taste even better with a few tad weee spoonfuls of cream or have it with protein or seafood. So many ways, I die. I found this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, The Kitchen, which incorporates recipes from a myriad of sources, latest kitchen styles, kitchen/cooking goodies and information about food you may never have heard of. I just love it. I was attracted to the sun dried tomato (which I love when I have in restaurants but never really used or cooked with it myself), basil and of course, cream. This was simple but incorporated very few ingredients that are each packed with flavor so just adding a few things together make a pretty awesome dish. I varied the recipe in how I cooked them but I’ll list both ways below.

As the Mantis said in Kung Fu Panda, “This is so good, I wish my mouth was bigger!” Enjoy.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta (adapted slightly from the Kitchen)
(Serves 4) Need: Small food processor, pan for sauce & one large pot to boil spaghetti

5 cloves garlic
3 tbs of fresh basil leaves
1 packed cup sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained (I made this recipe again and actually used sun dried tomato puree & spread that was also in the same section of the grocery)
1 tbs olive oil
1 cup milk
1/2 cup cream
1 tsp hot red pepper flakes (I omitted this)
½ cup parmesan cheese
1 lb. fettuccine or linguine or enough to feed 4 people (there’s a lot of sauce and I tend to like a lighter sauce on pasta)1. Boil and cook to al dente the pasta according to package directions. Put the sun dried tomato, basil and 4 garlic cloves in the food processor. Blend until lightly chunky as the below picture. (The Kitchen recipe only processed the tomatoes and manually minced and chiffonaded the basil. I liked forcing all the flavors to combine first in the processor).2. Heat a pan, put a splash of olive oil and mince the last garlic clove. Add the minced garlic clove until your kitchen gets that yummy roasted garlic smell. Add the sun dried tomato mixture and lightly cook on medium heat for a few minutes. 3. Add the milk and cream and lower the heat. Cook it for a good 7-10 minutes until it thickens a bit and cooks. (You can add in red pepper flakes here if you’d like). Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. (The sun dried tomato mixture is already pretty salty so I just added a pinch of pepper.)
4. Once pasta is al dente, add directly to the pan. Turn off heat and quickly mix the pasta with the mixture. If you need to add some pasta water you can. Last, I tossed in a handful of parmesan cheese to top it off. 5. Serve and enjoy! I served this with a light zucchini salad tossed with a lemon vinaigrette.