Saturday 23 June 2012

Greek Pasta



Greek Pasta. Is that an oxymoron? Maybe it's just having a culture identity crisis. I don't know, all I know is that it's tasty. I started a little while ago throwing a bit of tzatziki on my cold pasta that I was taking for lunch because we didn't have the dressing I normally use for pasta salad, and I'm not a fan of olive oil and / or balsamic vinegar. So, much to my delight I found something amazing. So, there are two ways you can eat this dish. Hot or cold. It's as simple as that. If you're eating it cold I'd suggest tossing your pasta with some raw mushrooms, some bell pepper, feta and tzatziki. Hmm! A great lunch. Well I began thinking and we needed something for dinner and we had some left over plain pasta. So I whipped this up in dare I say 5 minutes. Not a word of a lie. All those recipes people quote as saying are quick and simple work night meals, well this really is. The only thing you have to cut up is the mushrooms and from the time you walk into the kitchen until you can be eating this is literally 5 minutes. My leftover chicken I was reheating in the microwave was barely even heated by the time I was ready. So because I made this to accompany a leftovers meal, I did not make this up in a large quantity. Instead I did it more on an individual basis for just myself. Feel free to double, triple etc. depending on how much pasta you are having. Oh one more thing, when I say leftover pasta, I mean that I reheated it so it was hot. You can use fresh pasta though if you're one of those leftoverphobes. I guess I might not fit too well into the food blogging world because I am definitely not a leftoverphobe.

I'm sure this would be really good topped with a chicken breast that had been done in a souvlaki or something lemon juicy. I only had BBQed Chicken and so I decided to keep them separated on my plate instead of combining them.






Ingredients

Makes 1 Serving

3/4 C. Cooked Pasta
2 Tsp. Butter
1 C. Spinach
3/4 C. Mushrooms, sliced
2-3 Tsp. Tzatziki
Lemon Juice
1/2 Inch Cube of Feta, crumbled

Directions

~Cook your pasta according to the package instructions (or reheat last nights pasta as I did)
~Clean and slice your mushrooms
~When pasta is ready, heat a frying pan. When hot add in your butter.
~Once butter is bubbling, toss in the mushrooms and stir until they just start to cook (about 30 seconds)
~Add in the spinach. Stir, just until the spinach begins to soften and wilt.
~Remove pan from heat.
~Top hot pasta with tzatziki. Stir to evenly distribute. It should melt nicely around the pasta.
~Place spinach mixture on top of pasta (work fast, the spinach cools really quickly.) Stir in.
~Top with crumbled feta and a squirt or two of fresh lemon juice.

Enjoy


No comments: