Until now I still haven’t really mastered the art of planning meals.  I usually just rummage through whatever’s in the ref and come up with something edible.

Today, I found myself with a bag of organic spinach left over from dinner with Majel and Jenm last Saturday.  But I didn’t want to cook the same pasta coz that would be boring.

Last Saturday, I served linguine in spinach and alfredo sauce – not carbonarra as Jor calls it.   (FYI: Carbonarra is made with eggs and lots of cheese.)   I also served my regular meat and tomato sauce so we can mix it with the white sauce for a twist.   We had pepperoni pizza for starters.  I would usually serve focacia or ciabatta and an olive oil/balsamic dip but the last time I did that with Jorey’s friends, everyone was so stuffed by the end of the evening.

For dessert, we had brownies and ice cream.  It was a different brownie from my previous post.  The one I served was a double chocolate cookie pre-mix which I baked as a brownie and added more eggs to make it cakey.  I think it was good because when I baked it in the morning I wasn’t sure it was going to last for dinner because Jorey couldn’t stop picking on it.

So what did I do with the spinach? I cooked some penne pasta my usual way – in generously salted water and a few tablespoons oil for 8 mins.  (8 mins is my magic al dente number.  I don’t care if the package says 10-12 min.)

I then sauted bacon, garlic and tomatoes in olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Then I blanched my spinach with the pasta water leaving some pasta water for the sauce.  I then threw in the pasta and some pasta water into the saute’ pan to coat the pasta with sauce and wait a few minutes for the sauce to thicken from the starch in the pasta water.

It’s now ready to serve.  I keep the spinach separate so it doesn’t get overcooked and I can reheat the pasta separately.  Top it with a lot of Parmesan.

You can probably guess, what I had for dessert.