After I had Indy, I put up a post called “Post-Baby Pasta” in which I talked about how you can totally cook in the weeks after having a baby, so long as you’re a little…open-minded about the whole thing.
And I stand by that: sometimes, throwing together a meal is just as easy (or at least almost as easy) as ordering in – you just have to be kind of un-fussy about what you make, be imaginative about using whatever you already have on hand (because let’s get real: you are not “just going to run out to the store for a couple of things”), and make sure the whole deal takes no more than about ten minutes start-to-finish.
Let’s call this “Post-Baby Pasta Number Two.” I made it because it was 6PM and all of us were hungry, it was too late to start the takeout-ordering process, and when I looked in my refrigerator I found asparagus and goat cheese. In our cupboard, I found pasta, and pasta always makes our son happy, so there you go. It would have been better with a heartier pasta like rotini or fusilli, but what I had was spaghetti, so there you go.
Lemon sounded good, too.
There you go.
(Check out Smitten Kitchen’s version with spiral pasta and tarragon here.)
What You Need:
1 box pasta of choice (spaghetti is pictured here, but I’d recommend something like rotini or fusilli)
1 bunch skinny asparagus
2 oz goat cheese
1 lemon
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
What You Do:
1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Cut the tough ends off of the asparagus and lay them on a cooking sheet in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle over some salt. Cook in the preheated oven for a few minutes, until fork-tender.
2. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to package directions in a large pot of boiling water. When it’s done, drain it, reserving a little of the pasta water in case you need it later.
3. Remove some of the lemon zest and finely chop (you want about a tablespoon of minced zest total).
4. Cut the asparagus into 1″ pieces, and toss it in the pot with the pasta, crumbled goat cheese, lemon zest, the juice from the lemon, some olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Loosen with some of the pasta water, if necessary.
