What I love about this pasta dish is its simplicity. Easy to make, tasty and quicker than ordering a take out. Whether it’s dining al fresco or making a quick meal for a very hungry husband coming back from a 20km run, pasta is a great convenience food and store cupboard ingredient. Take a few simple ingredients like cherry tomatoes, garlic, chilli flakes and fresh herbs, tossed together to make a quick sauce in less time than it takes to boil water for the pasta.
Whenever I can I love using fresh herbs, but soon my lovely pots of fresh oregano and thyme will succumb to Bahrain’s summer heat and I will have to start all over again 😦 and plant new herbs when the weather cools down. I also keep dried oregano and thyme in the store cupboard and use these when fresh herbs are not available.
Did a little DIY and painted some old boards for a different background for my food photography, I must admit I wasn’t very adventurous with the colour. Thought I might make a mess of everything, so erring on the side of caution choose an off white colour. Hopefully I will be more courageous next time and try and paint a more colourful board, like this lovely distressed wooden board.
Spaghetti with Cherry Tomatoes, Chilli and Fresh Herbs
Ingredients:
- 250g dried spaghetti
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large garlic clove, peeled and crushed
- 1/4 crushed chilli flakes
- 250g cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered if large
- 2 tablespoon of fresh oregano leaves
- 4 sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped or remove the leaves if the stems are woody
- sea salt and freshly ground back pepper, to taste
- freshly grated parmesan cheese, to serve
How to make: Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water, until firm to the bite. While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the garlic, chilli flakes, cherry tomatoes, fresh oregano and thyme and cook for about a minute and a half or until the tomatoes have softened and released some of their juices. Season with some sea salt and black pepper. Drain the pasta and add to the tomato mixture, toss together, check seasoning. Serve immediately with some freshly grated parmesan cheese, if desired. Serves 2.
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