Olive Pasta

Pasta is one of those neutral bases that I like to keep handy for days, when I’m not so creative. S and I have different tastes. I enjoy my pasta al dente (since I actually chew my food); he, on the other hand, likes his noodles overcooked. Naturally, I try to accommodate both by taking mine out and letting his cook a little longer.

Now a little trick that I picked up is that using Penne pasta helps you to portion control, it looks like you have more, since they are tubules. With spaghetti, fetuccini, and angel hair pasta, I always feel as if I don’t have enough. Then, I wind up overeating. Since Penne takes up more room, then I don’t get that feeling and usually end up eating the right amount.

The most important thing, when it comes to pasta is the sauce. If you don’t have a good sauce, you won’t have a good pasta. When I was at the Co-Op in Santa Monica, I met Daisy. She sells pasta based on her family recipe. I ended up choosing the marinara. It was delicious ! There was so much tomato – I mean chunks of tomato. I couldn’t wait to try it on my pasta. It was $10 a jar and worth every dollar.

cooked some broccolini, onion, peppers. and black olives in a pan until they were soft. Make sure to throw the broccolini in first since it takes the longest to soften.

Once I cooked and drained my pasta I bathed it in the sauce and mixed in the vegetables.

That’s it ! Simple.

I was going to make it all pretty, wipe my bowl and then photograph it, but I decided – pasta should be messy. So, my picture has sauce splatter everywhere.