One Pot Pasta - a quick, easy and tasty dinner!

One of the things I like to do with my free time is to cook. It wasn't always like that

Growing up I wasn’t very interested in cooking. I thought it was a tedious task I only did when I was forced to do it.  When I moved into my first apartment I was thrown into the deep end. I couldn’t afford to eat out every day, so I had no choice but to start cooking. 

Over the years I’ve become much more confident in the kitchen and I enjoy trying out new recipes, tweaking and adjusting them. I’ve come to realize that the only way to get confident in the kitchen is to get in there and cook. I've had my share of disasters in the kitchen (don't even ask about the dinner party disaster that had me literally crying while calling for a pizza delivery), but instead of letting them discourage me I try to learn from them. 

A while back my sister introduced me to this dish; it's tasty and super easy to make.  Just toss all the ingredients in a pot, bring it to a boil and let it simmer until the pasta is done. 

The original recipe is from the Danish blogger Miss Jeanett.

One Pot Pasta

(Serves 2 persons)


The ingredients:

• 250 grams of spaghetti (8,8 oz / 0,55 lb)

• 7 dl water (3 cups / 1,5 pint)

• 200-300 g small flavorful tomatoes (7-10oz / 0,45-0,65 lb)

• 1 onion

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 100 grams of spinach (3,5 oz / 0,22 lb) I have used kale as a substitute and it was ok, but I prefer spinach

• Some fresh basil

• 1 dl double cream (0,42 cup / 0,2 pint)

• Olive oil

• Lemon oil (I have never used that, I’ve used juice from 1/2 lemon or 1 lime to add some zingy taste)

• Spices (salt, pepper, chili flakes, dried basil, onion powder are suggestions on the blog where I found the recipe)

• Shredded parmesan (sprinkle over each plate when serving)

How to do it:

• Split the tomatoes in halves  

• Slice onion and garlic thinly 

• Rinse the spinach

• Break the spaghetti in half  

Put all the ingredients in a large pot.  It’s important that all the ingredients are in the pot before you turn on the heat so they're heated simultaneously.  When it starts to boil let it simmer for about 9 minutes.  Watch it and stir regularly to make sure it doesn’t stick on the bottom of the pot.  When the pasta is cooked take the pot off the heat and let it set for 3-5 minutes before serving it.  
I have substituted the spaghetti with tagliatelle and it worked well. Tagliatelle takes a little longer to cook than spaghetti and the longer cooking time gave the sauce a more creamy consistency. 


Add salt, pepper and parmesan to taste when you serve it.

Bon apetit!

The Pilanesberg (mis)adventures - part I (2013)

I recently spent three weeks in South Africa. This was my third visit and every time I've been there my friends have taken me to Pilanesberg National Park for a daylong game drive.  The park is located in the North West province of South Africa, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of Pretoria.

Every visit there has been made more interesting by some sort of unexpected (mis)adventure. This post is about my first visit to the park.

2013

My first visit to South Africa was in January of 2013. On January 23rd it was time for my first visit to Pilanesberg.  We left the house before sunrise to get to there early.  All of us were pretty sleepy and we skipped coffee, breakfast and all that essential stuff. We just wanted to get on the road and our plan was to stop for coffee and rusks (a South African kind of biscuit) at the gate when we got to Pilanesberg.  

We were all more than ready for coffee when we arrived there and opened the trunk of the car to get everything we needed out.  Only to realize that the picnic basket had been left behind at the house.  In Pretoria. A two hour drive away.  Oops!  Thankfully we had brought all the food and drinks, including the thermoses with much needed coffee, with us.  We just didn't have plates, cups, cutlery, cooking utensils etc. 

Some impromptu souvenir shopping (a set of wooden salad servers with zebra stripes on the handles), two balloon sticks we found in the car and a plastic spoon we found on the ground by the water tap at the picnic site saved the day. We used slices of bread as plates for the scrambled eggs we had for lunch and shared the three mugs on the thermoses between the five adults.  And it was fine. We had a great day.

The cooking utensils: souvenir salad servers, two balloon sticks found in the car and a plastic spoon we found by the water tap at the picnic site (we washed it thoroughly before we used it).

In the days leading up to the trip to Pilanesberg my friends were telling me that the animal we'd see lots of was elephants.  The claimed I'd be sick of them by the end of the day (I can't fathom being sick of ellies).  We didn't see a single elephant that day. Not one. We saw plenty of other animals; zebra, giraffe, white rhino, hippo, impala, blue wildebeest, waterbuck... We even saw a lion. But no elephants. Apparently they were hiding from the scary Norwegian visitor or something like that.

It was a lovely day, despite the lack of picnic basket and elephants. I wowed to come back next year to (fingers crossed) see elephants. (And hopefully eat my lunch from a plastic plate. ;-))

Zebra and Impala by Mankwe dam

Red bishop (the bird) in the grass by Mankwe dam.