Semplicita angel hair & artichokes

I love pasta. My mouth waters at the thought of pasta, but sometimes I do have to change it up.  I am ½ Italian ½ German, but my husband says I’m all Italian.  It’s in my blood, every holiday growing up it was pasta, lasagna, sausages, red sauce…..I could go on and on.  In an effort to eat from our pantry this week I took inspiration from another recipe (made it a little lighter) and came up with this goodness.

By leaving the extra cheese and milk out I felt much better about eating pasta carbs for dinner, and this dish is just as yummy. trust me!

Semplicita Angel Hair

• 3 tbsp of butter (I used Earth Balance to make it a bit healthier…don’t tell my husbandJ)
• 1 tbsp chopped Garlic
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped small
• 1 cup low sodium chicken broth (I used homemade broth) or vegetable broth
• 1 tbsp flour
• Salt & pepper
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
• Artichokes
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 lb. of angel hair pasta

In a small sauce pan drop 3 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.  Add 1 medium yellow onion chopped small and saute until translucent. 

At this point add the garlic and shake of salt and pepper.  In a small cup mix 1 tablespoon on flour with chicken broth. this will help the broth thicken once its on the stove and by adding the flour to the broth before its warm you won't get any weird clumps in your sauce.  stir broth into onion mix and leave on stove over low-medium heat while you work on the artichokes.

I used a can of artichokes from Trader Joes in my dish.  they're not marinated in anything, just water so they're not adding any extra flavors to the dish that you don't want. 

chop up into pieces and saute in another pan with a drizzle of olive oil.  I left mine on the stove top for maybe 5 minutes. I wanted them to soften, but not fall apart, and you're going to add them to the other sauce mix so they'll cook a bit more in there too.

Once your artichokes are cooked, and the sauce is thickening add artichokes to the onion/chicken broth sauce.  This is when I added the cayenne pepper and the parmesan cheese.

Leave dish on stove to simmer for a little while, while you cook your noodles.

Pasta Noodles - you know how to cook these right?  OK good.

Once pasta is cooked through, make yourself a plate!  add the sauce/artichokes over the pasta, top with parsley and additional parmesan and enjoy!

OPTIONAL: Top with extra parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper

And of course what is a pasta dinner without a side salad?  My grandfather always said, every dinner should include a little bit of green!

Ben loved this dish, and it just is a huge reminder to me that I need to use what we have before I buy more crap!!