another easy weeknight dinner

Being Filipina, I love me some rice. But, like most food, it's really hard to cook exactly one serving of rice when I'm making myself dinner. Even the frozen rice packets at Trader Joes serves 2. I'm really bad about eating leftovers, so having foods that I can make exactly one meal at a time is ideal. This is one reason I often go to pasta as my starch of choice. Measure out 1/2 C of dry pasta, boil, add seasonal veggies and some kind of sauce... golden.

This dinner took me all of 12 minutes to make, which is the amount of time it took the pasta to boil. While the pasta was boiling, I sauteed some minced garlic in olive oil just long enough to take the bite off of the garlic. Burnt garlic is terrible. I sliced up some heirloom cherry tomatoes, both I got from the farmers market over the weekend. Drain the pasta, toss it all together, top with parmesan cheese, and viola! Dinner for one. No waste. Oh yeah. 

Simple Summer Pasta Dinner for 1

1/2 C pasta  

1/2 Tbsp olive oil

1 small garlic clove, minced

3-4 leaves basil, rolled then sliced (chiffonade)

1 C cherry tomatoes, halved

parmesan cheese, to taste

salt and pepper, to taste

Bring water to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Add pasta and cook according to package directions.

In the mean time, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and sautee for a minute or two, or until it starts to get soft. Take off heat. Slice tomatoes. 

Drain the pasta. Add olive oil, basil, and tomatoes. Toss. Season with salt and pepper. Toss together and taste. Add as much parmesan as you like. Eat!

You can, of course, customize the heck out of this. I've made pasta with sauteed zucchini and squash. I've added frozen peas and corn. I've added shrimp or diced chicken. Pasta is a fantastic blank canvas that you can play around to your heart's content.