scampi, the sequel

Most home cooks have just a dozen or so by-heart recipes in their repertoire.  What they don't realize is that a few small changes can transport those dishes into a whole new realm.  I really enjoy the marriage of shrimp, garlic, and butter; and I had all three in the house today.  I also had some spinach left over, as well as some oven-dried tomatoes in the freezer.  I don't care for the appearance of tomato sauce with spinach pasta, but with dried tomatoes, I thought it might be nice.  And I like the touch of home made pasta, which is a snap with a food processor and a pasta roller.

the pasta starts with a couple of cups of washed spinach

and an egg

Once the spinach leaves and eggs have been pulverized, in goes the flour.  I ended up using a cup and a third.  One quick aside -- I never use cooked spinach for spinach pasta, even though that is typical of spinach pasta recipes.  When you use fresh, the cooked noodles are a bright, fresh green, rather than a sad, gray-green mess.  The added bonus is that you don't have to precook the spinach, so the dough comes together in under two minutes.

enough flour is added to make a pebbly looking mixture

that gets wrapped in plastic wrap and rested for half an hour

rolling the dough takes a couple of minutes with a pasta machine

the cut noodles are then tossed with a bit of rice flour

The rice flour better resists turning gummy, but regular flour will do in a pinch.  Seriously, including the rest time for the dough, I made homemade spinach noodles in under a half an hour.  Seems like they should be in just about any cook's repertoire.  But I suppose I am kidding myself.  If you don't feel like doing it, just buy some fresh spinach noodles at the market.

I had some oven dried tomatoes in the freezer that I did last summer, but sun-dried tomatoes would work just fine.

cute little oven-dried tomatoes from last summer's farmer's market

I sauteed four cloves of garlic in a tablespoon of butter for under a minute, added some shrimp, sauteed those for about 3 minutes, then added a cup of wine, took the shrimp out of the pot, and reduced the butter and wine with the tomatoes.  I added in the juice of one lemon, and a bit of salt and pepper.

The reduced sauce is infused with the tomato flavor, without the muddy color

The shrimp jumps back into the pot for two minutes.  Then in goes the cooked pasta (which cooks in under two minutes), everything is tossed a bit, and on to the plate.  You truly can make a flavorful and interesting meal in under an hour.  And the more lovely thing for me is, even if your puttering and futzing about, this still all comes together in under two hours.  

not bad looking for a Monday night dinner