This is tasty, simple, relatively healthy and inexpensive pasta dish I recently started making with ingredients almost exclusively from Trader Joe’s. I’ve named it “Pasta a la Chloe” in honor of my dog, who sits patiently by while I make it then darts into the kitchen and starts eating it from the stove the second I leave the room. Well, that’s life.
Things You’ll Need (This fed two people and there were enough leftovers for lunch):
- ½ and onion
- 2 or 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 thing of soy chorizo
- 1 bag of spinach
- 1 box/bag of wheat rotini (or any other pasta that you prefer)
- Salt
- Olive oil
- Thyme
There's a red scare in my kitchen (A) Ingredients (B) Thyme (C) Chorizo (D) Wood spoon baby!
So this is an extremely easy dish to make. I’m gonna go through it step-by-step, ‘cause when I first became a vegan I really didn’t known how to cook at all, other than noodles, rice, things that going into microwaves and eggs (which proved totally useless, as you can imagine).
First throw some water on to boil. You’ll use that to make the noodles. I’m not going to go through the process of cooking noodles – you’re on your own for that one. You’ll want to start the noodles around the same time that you start heating the olive oil.
I cook with a cast iron pan, which consumes oil like a muscle car. Start with enough to coat the bottom of the pan and turn the boiler to medium/medium high heat. When the oil is hot enough to spit back at you when you drop water onto it, add the onions.
If you’re cooking on cast iron, be very carefully – food burns very quickly and oil disappears like a thief in the night. Add oil continually as needed and adjust the heat similarly.
Cook the onions for 3 to 5 minutes, or until brown. You can chop them however you’d like. I cut them into very small pieces as I don’t like the overwhelming taste of large pieces of onion. But really, it’s your call. While the onions are cooking, chop the garlic then crush it. To crush it, put the knife flat on top of the garlic and hit it with the heel of your hand.
Add the garlic once the onions brown. Cook the garlic and onions for 2 or 3 minutes before adding the broccoli and soy chorizo. Trader Joe’s soy chorizo cost about $3 and is very tasty, but also VERY messy. You don’t want to have nice clothes on when you cook with it and you’ll want to roll up your sleeves.
The soy chorizo is double packed, first in standard plastic wrap, secondly in a tube. I use about 33 percent of the tube when I make this dish, so I get three uses out of each tube. If you’re cooking for yourself, that’s almost ten meals! Not bad…
Squeeze the chorizo onto the pan. It’ll come out in one big chunk. Use your wooden spoon (I only roll wooden spoon) to mince it – it breaks down quickly and easily.
Cook the onions, garlic, broccoli and chorizo for 3 or 4 minutes on medium heat. Add some salt and stir regularly.
(A) Chloe would like some... (B) $3.99-for-a-six pils (C) The finished product
Now we add the noodles. Just dump them all on in there once they’ve been given a chance to drain. Rotini is good to use because the little chunks of soy chorizo work their way into the spiral of the noodle. Penne serves this purpose as well, though doesn’t have quite the same effect.
Cook it all until the noodles have heated to the temperature of the rest of ingredients and are coated in the juice of the chorizo.
Finally, add the spinach and thyme. I use half a large bag of spinach and a pinch or two of thyme. The spinach will cook down quickly. Once its wilted and dark green, you’re good to go.
Turn off the burner and serve.
Enjoy!
Chloe and I listened to Dinosaur Jr. while cook this, so we give you one of our favorite songs of theirs (and on a serious note, onion is incredibly toxic to dogs. Chloe only got one tiny bite of this dish before I got her off the stove. If your dog has ingested large amounts of onion or other toxic foods like grapes, chocolate, or coffee, contact the ASPCA Poison Control.):
