Healthy and hearty meals are essential when it comes to cooking during quarantine.
"Party In Your Plants" cookbook author Talia Pollock joined "Good Morning America" to share a simple pasta recipe filled with versatile ingredients that can be easily swapped out for similar items people may have on hand at home.
Ingredients
12 to 16 ounces brown rice spaghetti
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt or pink salt to taste
1 large sweet potato, chopped into cubes
1/4 cup pine nuts (pumpkin seeds work too) (optional)
1 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small bunch of kale, stems removed and chopped
Red pepper flakes to taste (optional)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Directions
Bring a pot of water to a boil.
Add pasta to the pot of boiling water and cook it according to the package’s instructions.
While it cooks, in a large sauté pan over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, a few pinches of sea salt and the sweet potatoes. Cook, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Toss the sweet potatoes around with a wooden spoon, cover the sauté pan with a lid and cook for 5 more minutes.
Place the pine nuts, if using, in a sauté pan over medium heat and toast them for 3 minutes, stirring frequently or shaking the pan until they’re golden.
Your pasta should be done around now, so drain it and return it to the pot.
Add the garlic and kale to the sauté pan with the sweet potatoes, plus the red pepper flakes, if using. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the kale has wilted and turns bright green.
Remove from the stove and squeeze lemon juice over the kale.
Drizzle the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over the cooked pasta, add the sautéed vegetables and pine nuts and toss. Season with salt to taste and sit down, take deep breaths, think happy thoughts and serve warm, preferably with ginger tea or ginger kombucha on the side.
Tips
Employ veggie doppelgangers -- swap spinach for kale, butternut for sweet potato.
Leftovers are the bestovers -- throw in whatever you have on hand from the night before.
Add protein -- this works deliciously with your favorite protein addition to up the filling-you-up factor.
Flaunt what you got -- any pasta will do! Use whatever shape or flour you have on hand.
Skip or swap -- no pine nuts? Try pumpkin seeds or skip altogether.
Excerpted from Party in Your Plants by Talia Pollock with permission of Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © Talia Pollock, 2020.
