Quick & Super Easy Kale Pasta

There are days when I ran out of ideas on what to cook. Actually it's more like a major brain fart because of a screaming baby in my ears. That plus a hungry hubby and a hangry self, food has to be quick, simple and most importantly, fuss free.

I recently bought kale to try. I have been searching for it high and low in Malaysia but never had any luck so when I saw it here, I quickly dance my way to it. I would say my dance was a hybrid of Miley Cyrus flat butt twerking and a stiff, I-threw-my-hips-out zombie walk but no one needs that mental image so let's move on the real reason why we're here.

I thought of doing something a little different with this recipe post, more pictures so please let me know in the comment section if you like it better than just one picture.

Food, food, oh glorious food...let's cook!

Ingredients:

2 cups pasta
2 cups kale; baby spinach is a great alternative!

(A)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic; minced
2 pieces sun dried tomatoes; DO NOT RINSE THE OIL
1/4 tsp dried chili flakes; OMIT if you can't take spicy

2 tbs pine nuts; optional

1/3 tsp sea salt; to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper

Freshly grated parmigiano reggiano/parmesan of your choice for garnish and taste

Cooking method:
1. Cook pasta as per package instruction.
2. Put (A) into pan WITHOUT turning the heat on.
3. Turn heat on low so the oil will slowly heat up. This way the garlic won't burn and the oil will be richly infused with flavour. Let oil come up to a low simmer, roughly 10 minutes.
4. Add pine nuts to oil and let it continue cooking for another 5 minutes or until nuts start to toast.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste. I personally add 1/3 - 1/2 tsp sea salt. Add less if using table salt as it is saltier than sea salt.
6. Drain pasta, put it back into the pot it was cooked in, pour oil mixture and mix well.
7. DO NOT RINSE the oil from the pan, instead add kale to it and cook until kale starts to wilt.
8. Add kale into pasta and mix well.
9. Garnish with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano or parmesan of your choice.
9. Serve while it's hot.

NOTE:
1. Best way to make any oil based pasta is to let the flavour slowly infused into the oil. The way of doing this is to let the oil slowly heats up with all the spices in it. That's the secret to a good aglio olio pasta dish.

2. You can chop sun dried tomatoes to smaller pieces but we personally am not a huge fan of eating it so I left it as a whole piece so it can be easily taken out later. I use it only for flavour.

3. My way of cooking is always IN PAIRS. 2 cups pasta, 2 cups kale, 2 cloves garlic...etc, you get the drift. 1 cup per person, yes, we eat a pretty huge portion in this house. LOL!

Served with oven baked breaded chicken breast