Creamy Garlic Pasta

I had my weekly dinner for the first time in a couple of weeks, so didn't want to take on something too terribly difficult. I decided to make this recipe. I already had all the ingredients, pretty much, so it didn't require an extra trip to the grocery store, which I appreciate.

The first thing I usually do when starting dinner is the dishes. Because there are usually some left over from whatever I was doing last and I don't like to have dirty dishes all over the counter.

So I put the olive oil on to heat up, then turned around to unload some of the clean dishes from the dishwasher.

It wasn't until I smelled something burning that I remembered the olive oil, the dishes had distracted me so thoroughly.

So, yeah. Burning olive oil. Not a good start.

I grabbed a towel, grabbed the metal handles of the pot, and dragged it to the back burner off the heat. No water, no nothing. Just took it off the heat.


Then I got out my other pot that's good for boiling pasta, put that on the hot burner and immediately put the garlic in it so the sizzling sound and the aroma would keep me reminded that I had something on the stove.

Then I went back to unloading the dish washer. But briefly, as I needed to figure out the chicken stock and pasta situation.

Yummy looking, huh?

See, I hate recipes that mix measuring. I have cups of stock, but pounds of pasta? And I don't keep spaghetti in it's box, I have an airtight container for it, so I had no idea how many pounds I had. I was at a bit of a loss.

So I started with the three cups the recipe indicated. I got that to boiling while figuring out what to do with the spaghetti.


I basically just kept adding until it looked like it would be enough for four people.


Then it looked there probably wasn't enough chicken stock, so I put in the last cup that was in the box of chicken stock.


I let the pasta boil while I finished the dishes then prepped the lettuce I had for a salad, and did what I could to make dessert easier later.


I kept checking on it because I was worried about the amount of liquid. Toward the end, I added an extra cup on water because it really didn't look like there was enough liquid to finish cooking the pasta.


Now, the only parsley I had on hand was frozen in my freezer. Not the prettiest for sprinkling over top. So I asked the first friend who arrived what she thought about either dried oregano or fresh basil. I happen to have a basil plant on my balcony now, so that was an option.


She opted for the oregano, so while she stirred the pasta with the milk and parmesan cheese, I went out and got a few leaves. I washed them all individually, dried them, rolled them up together, and used my kitchen shears to cut thin ribbons.

I'm looks pretty good, too.

I served it with Caesar salad and bread. A very carb-laden meal, which I generally try to avoid. Everyone seemed to like it though, although my friend who doesn't like chicken said she could taste the chicken from the chicken stock. The rest of us didn't know what she was talking about, since all we tasted was savoriness, not chicken.


Conclusion: Try vegetable stock instead of chicken stock to turn it into a vegetarian meal. Or for someone who doesn't like chicken. This would make a good side dish to baked chicken or steak.