Lemon Garlic Pasta

I'm a glutton for carbs. Pasta and bread should be the base to all meals. Today, for the first time, we made Lemon Garlic Pasta using this recipe as a starting point. It doesn't look like much, but damn, it was good.

What we used:

1/4 olive oil, plus
half a head of garlic, roasted
crushed red pepper
lemon juice
spaghetti 

Look at how easy that is, and likely you have most of those ingredients.

To roast the garlic, I preheated the oven to 350, and peeled about half a head of garlic. Stuck it in an oven safe ramekin, and covered the cloves in olive oil (that was the plus) and covered the ramekin with tin foil. Roasted for about 40 minutes, making sure to shake it every 10 to 15 minutes so they didn't bake to the bottom of the dish.

When the garlic was approaching done, I started boiling the water for my pasta. We usually buy a five pound box of spaghetti, so I measured out 3.5 servings for the two of us.

By the time the water started boiling the garlic was done. Pulled it out to cool while I added the pasta to the water. The garlic was so soft that it turned into a garlic paste, an affect I wasn't expecting, but it turned out great.

1/4 cup oil and roasted garlic got heated up, on high, in a frying pan. Once it was heated up, about 4 minutes, I added the lemon juice and red pepper. I didn't bother dirtying measuring spoons for this, I just squirted, and Jonathan just shook, until it looked like enough. Heat that for another few minutes.

Once the pasta was done, and drained, turned down the heat on the frying pan and mixed the spaghetti right into the sauce.

I had bough a brick of Parmesan cheese to grate over the top, but I forgot about it. For a warm dish it tasted surprisingly crisp and refreshing.

Next time, if keeping it vegan/vegetarian friendly, I'd like to add asparagus to the dish, the added color and texture would help round it out, not to mention add some nutritional value. Otherwise, grilled chicken would be a great protein.

I grew up loving buttered noodles, but after this, I think I'll take a few extra steps to making something that is just as comforting but tastes better and leaves me feeling less greasy.