Love for Food

Being on a tight budget last week, I had pasta with Ragu every day for lunch. Everyone in the office commented on how good it smelled but I thought it tasted terrible. The sauce was too sweet and had no flavor. I remembered reading something in Food Network magazine about homemade pasta sauce. I thought it was about time I had found an easy go to pasta sauce recipe. I wanted to freeze it and have it whenever I wanted it and had no time to cook.
It was than I realized due to the cold snap this past winter, tomatoes were not cheap! I didn't want to spend much more than bottled sauce or it would not be a good replacement. But even after all that pasta I still had a craving; perhaps because I didn't like what I had ate. I wanted to come up with something.

Tomatillo plant
I was reminded of tomatillos at the relatively new Turkish produce shop on the corner. They had a huge bin of em' and they looked like little presents waiting to be opened. Tomatillos are similar to tomatoes and only $1.30 per pound so I decided to test out some methods for making a tomatillo pasta sauce. For those of you who don't know tomatillos are a relative of the tomato but smaller and more tart in flavor. They are used a lot in Mexican dishes and high in iron, magnesium, fiber and vitamin C and vitamin K.

I came up with a healthy base sauce of spinach and tomatillos inspired by the recipe for Roasted Tomatillo Sauce over whole wheat pasta I found on SparkRecipes. I added some masrcapone cheese (which is high in fat) for creaminess and flavor. If you're more health conscious than I am you can skip the marscapone cheese. I see Giada (host of Everyday Italian) use it all the time and remembered her describing it as similar to sour cream but without the sourness. Another idea was to try the cream cheese alternative from Tofuti which is very low in fat and calories or maybe even some Greek yogurt. I could not put myself up to it. I think the extra fat really adds dimension and taste. To add some freshness I tossed it with some grape tomatoes and some cilantro. I also added a pouch of Bumble Bee Salmon but I think it's unnecessary since there are already a lot of flavors going on. I was happy with the result even happier about it's healthiness.

Recipe: serves four to six
Ingredients:
1/2 pound tomatillos
1 avocado
1 10oz. box frozen spinach (cooked and water squeezed out)
2 teaspoons salt
1 jalapeno pepper
6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 12oz. bag whole wheat egg noodles
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1 pound pasta (I used whole wheat egg noodles)

Method:

• Boil the jalapeno with tomatillos for about 10 mins or until soft and drain.
• Cook pasta to al dente.
• Blend/food process spinach, avocados, oregano, and salt with the jalapeno and tomatillos.
• Mix the sauce with quartered grape tomatoes, chopped cilantro, and pasta.
• Top with dollop of cheese.