Creamy Garlic Pasta

Ever get to late afternoon, take a look around your kitchen, and realize you have no clue what to make for dinner? I tend to grocery shop on Tuesday mornings, and Monday nights can be the hardest nights to feed the family since there’s usually little to no food left in the house to work with (the Market is near a weekly errand I run on Tues).

So, as I’m pursuing the fridge, the pantry, the freezer, the fridge again (in case something good miraculously appeared since I checked it two minutes before…) I’m starting to see I have pretty much just a few basic ingredients that I can use to create something not only filling, but kid friendly.

We always keep a small selection of pastas on hand. You can turn almost anything into a pasta or a casserole and it’s a great way to ‘clean out’ the random leftover foods. “Kitchen Sink Casseroles” are pretty common around here – ‘kitchen sink’ meaning we tossed everything but the kitchen sink in! I actually added in some leftover rotisserie chicken and some sauteed mushrooms to my batch last night. Feel free to experiment!

For the base of this dish, I used:

2 tsp EVOO 4 cloves minced garlic 2 TBSP butter 1/2 tsp pepper 1/4 tsp salt 3 cups chicken stock (homemade if you can!) 1/2 lb of spaghetti noodles (half a box) slightly less than 1 cup of grated parmesean cheese slightly more than 3/4 cup of heavy cream

Directions: 1. In a pot, warm EVOO and add the garlic. Allow to cook for 1-2 minutes then mix in the butter until melted. Add salt, pepper, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil. 2. Add pasta and cook to al dente. Reduce heat to medium and mix in parmesean until completely melted. Turn off the heat and add in the cream. 3. Add in any additional ingredients you want – cooked chicken, mushrooms, whatever you like. Serve immediately.