I’m not very big on pasta for a couple of reasons: for one, they add unnecessary starch to your diet, and secondly, I just don’t care for the taste of “whole-wheat” pasta…seriously, it tastes like boiled cardboard to me. I know that for many, pasta is an old stand-by simply because it’s cheaper and easier than a truck stop hooker. To me, it’s also nearly as unappealing. On the other hand, doll it up as a pasta salad with some high quality olive oil, and I quickly change my tune.

For this recipe, I generally use organic corkscrew pasta (screwdles, fusilli, whatever) type pasta. You can use tricolor if you so insist, but nutritionally speaking, the smidgen of tomato paste or spinach added to make the other colors is negligible and you’ll have lots of color anyway because of all the lovely vegetable we’ll be adding.

Ingredients:

1 cup Dry Pasta (or you fresh made pasta if you’re lucky enough to find it)

½ T Canola Oil

2 cloves Garlic

½ cup diced Roma Tomatoes or halved Cherry Tomatoes

½ cup chopped Asparagus

¼ cup minced Red Onion or Sweet Onion

¼ cup sliced Green, Black, or Mixed Olives

½ cup chopped or sliced Mushrooms (baby ‘bellas preferred)

1 c Baby Spinach

Now, some cooks say to add salt to the water you boil your pasta in, some say don’t, and others (who don’t really know what they’re talking about) say it makes no difference. Well, if you paid attention in you middle school science class, you would know that salt changes the boiling point of water. So there. I say that if you’re cooking pasta or other processed items, add salt as it will allow the water to reach a higher temperature without boiling so violently. If you’re blanching veggies, leave the salt for after cooking to preserve the texture and color. With rice, add the salt last also, to allow the starches to fluff the grains, but with pasta, salt the water first to keep that boiling point higher and lock the starch in the place for an al dente texture. No one with teeth likes mushy pasta.

Always use a large pot, even if it doesn’t seem like that much pasta. Allow it to move freely so that it doesn’t stick together and cooks evenly. Use a minimum of 6 cups of water for 1 cup dry pasta, plus 1 ½ cups water for every additional cup of pasta and add a generous pinch (½ – 1 tsp) salt to the water, bring it to a gentle boil, and add the pasta. Cook until the pasta is totally opaque and test it by cutting a noodle and seeing if the color is even all the way through. You may have heard that you can tell that spaghetti is done when you throw it at the wall and it sticks. While this is true and you can do this for with fettuccini, angel hair and other types of stick pasta, it doesn’t work well for screw shaped pasta, shells, or anything else really. When the pasta is done (should take no more than 15 minutes) strain it in a colander and rinse briefly with cold water. It is okay to rinse it for this recipe as you won’t need hot pasta. Just let it sit for a minute while you sauté the veggies.

In a large frying pan, heat ½ T canola oil. Heat 2 cloves of garlic sliced in half in the oil to release their flavor. Add asparagus into 1-2 inch pieces, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms (sliced if they are large) and clean baby spinach (optional.) Sauté until the spinach is wilted and the asparagus looks bright green. I like for my veggies to have some bite. Also, did you know that spinach is one vegetable that you should never eat raw? That oh-so-healthy spinach salad is depleting your calcium and changing you pH. Spinach is best eaten when at least lightly cooked (called wilted) or added to a soup. If it makes your teeth feel gritty when you eat it, you should have probably cooked it longer.

Ok, so your vegetables look done now, bright greens, reds, and purples…a feast for the eyes. Now, turn off the heat and add the pasta to the pan. Add about 3/ T of quality olive oil, ¼ tsp ground black pepper and ½ tsp sea salt. Mix it up, and now you’re done.

I prefer to eat this dish warm, but if you insist on eating it cold or having it later, be sure to ice it down as quickly as possible by spreading it in a wide dish and immediately refrigerating it. You can give it an ice bath of use a freezer safe dish that’s been previously chilled and stirring with a frozen spoon. Pasta is starchy and provides ideal nourishment for bacteria. Contrary to popular belief, salmonella does not taste like chicken: it tastes like painful bowel issues and a trip to the emergency room. Some folks like to add vinegar to make it more hostile for the bacteria, but I feel that vinegar brings out bitterness in starchy foods. Just cool it down to 36 degrees Fahrenheit or lower and make sure it stays cold until it’s time to eat.