A new pasta recipe!

I have now finished my junior year!  This past semester was difficult for me (for non-school related reasons), and I have to say I'm glad it's over.  School-wise I'm doing well and am so happy that I find myself in a major that is great for me!  One of my personal goals for this past semester was to make more of my own food / try new recipes.  That didn't happen as much as I had hoped.  (Nor did posting on this blog.)  Now that summer is here once again, I am going to try to post and make new recipes more often!


Here is one recipe that I made up this past semester that turned out great!  I love pasta, so I searched online for some new recipes, and then combined some of the ideas I found.  I was still living in a dorm, so my requirements for a recipe reflect that.  It must only contain spices I have or would use often enough that I will buy them, only require simply ingredients and preparation, and only require ingredients that I can buy in quantities small enough that I can use all of what I buy in the dish or in something else easy before it goes bad.  For example, when I bought spinach for this recipe, I used the leftovers on sandwiches or in salads along with the tomatoes and feta cheese.


This recipe is very flexible.  I measured things out roughly so that I would have some idea of how to repeat this recipe, but feel free to add more or less of each ingredient based on what you have on hand and to alter the spices based on taste.  I actually made this recipe again this past week while on vacation with my family and had forgotten which spices we brought with us.  It turns out that we only had garlic and had forgotten basil and red pepper flakes, so I just tasted and adjusted how much garlic and lemon juice I added, and it was still good!  (While it was still good, it didn't quite live up to the full recipe with all the spices included. :P)

Ingredients:
2 cups dry rotini pasta (or your pasta of choice)
2 cups cooked ground beef
1 1/2 cups asparagus
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
1/2 cup spinach
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp garlic
dash red pepper flakes
salt
pepper
feta cheese

Tools:
frying pan
pot
stove
knife
measuring devices
spoon/spatula

Instructions:
0. If the beef is not already cooked, cook it in the frying pan on medium heat, stirring occasionally.  When you are done, drain the beef of any excess fat, set aside, and wipe the oil out of the pan with a paper towel and throw it away.  (It is not good to pour oils down the drain, as they can become solid at room temperature and cause blockages.
1.  Start heating water for pasta.  Once it is boiling, add the pasta and follow the directions for your pasta.  Continue with the following steps while the water is heating and the pasta is cooking.
2. Wash the asparagus.  Chop the ends off of them and then cut into 2-inch sections.
3. Add olive oil and lemon juice to the frying pan and turn it to medium heat.
4. After the pan has heated up some, add the asparagus.  Stir occasionally and continue cooking until the asparagus is somewhat tender.
5.  While asparagus is cooking, wash the tomatoes and the spinach.  Cut the tomatoes in half.
6.  After the asparagus is done, add the beef to the pan.  This is simply to warm it up again and add flavor.
7.  Add basil, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.  Add more of any of the spices or more lemon juice to reach desired taste.
8.  Add the spinach and the tomatoes to the frying pan, stirring occasionally.
9.  Once the spinach has wilted, remove the pan from the burner.
10.  Serve pasta with the mixture from the frying pan and then top with crumbled feta cheese.



Notes:
This dish reheats well, and would probably taste good with whatever veggies you have on hand that you want to use.  If you are making this for a group of people who do not all like the same ingredients, it is easy to do each ingredient separately in the frying pan by removing the one you were just working on before adding the next.  I've done this and maintaining the order I suggested above works well, as the shorter cooking times of the spinach and the tomatoes leave less time for the other ingredients to cool down too much.

This is the cooked rotini.  Since then, I have also used linguine with good results.

Here is the cooked beef and vegetables before I mix them with the pasta.

Enjoy!