Food? Who me?

I guess I cooked something yesterday. I just haven't been eating a lot lately. I always go into involuntary fasting mode during the summer, it seems.

Yesterday I had to use up some tomatoes and spinach. I decided to cook some brown rice rotini. I have to say...I've become a huge fan of this alternative pasta. I never liked whole wheat pasta. I just don't like it. I've tried lentil pasta and quinoa pasta. ...just not good. Maybe I've tried corn pasta, too. I love artichoke pasta a lot, but it just doesn't offer the same "health kick" in the pants that high protein or whole grain pastas do. I love nutrient-dense foods. It's nice when they taste good, too.

I cooked the pasta al dente in salted water with a nice amount of oil, because I hate when pasta gets sticky. I drained it, let it cool down a bit to stop the cooking process (I'm not a big fan of the cold water on hot pasta technique unless it's an emergency.), and put it in a glass serving bowl.

Anyway, I smashed up some tomatoes in a pot with some sea salt, dried basil, dried oregano, black pepper, and some good canola oil. I don't like canola oil, but that's what Michael brought me. I let things somewhat violently soften, sizzle, and stick in there as I added more oil and some water when I wanted to deglaze the "little brown bits" stuck to the bottom of the pot. I smashed up about eight garlic cloves and threw them in...I wish I'd roasted them in a separate little pan so that they browned a bit, but at least they cooked all the way through...they just didn't mellow in flavor as much as I would have liked.

I washed the "adult" spinach by dunking it a large bowl full of water a couple of times. This is the preferred method for washing green leafy vegetables. Fill up a large bowl with water and put the leaves in; dunk them in the water and swoosh them all around gently with your fingers. The unwanted sediment will float off and sink to the bottom of the bowl. You can let the leaves sit in the water, too, if you want. Anyway, at the end, when the smashed tomatoes were nice and soft I added a touch more water to the pot, and threw the spinach in there. I put the lid back on the pot. About a minute and a half later it was done.

I used a large slotted spoon kind of utensil to take the tomatoes and spinach out of the pot. I put the vegetables on top of the pasta.

With the remaining thin, but savory, liquid that had remained I decided to make a bit of a sauce. I had some kuzu starch...took about 1/4 t. of it, dissolved it in some cold water, then threw it in with the deglazed juices left over in the pot. I put the heat on, started to stir and deglaze and stir and deglaze and the liquid started to bubble and thicken right there, baby! Anyway, it got to the consistency of a tomato soup. I only had about 6 ozs. of it, but it was perfect. I poured it over the pasta which had the beautiful red and green yumminess on top and I ate...I ate a meal.

Now I feel fat.