Spicy Tomato Cream Pasta

Cream pastas pose one of life’s most complicated questions: how does one garner cream’s comfort without creating an excessively rich dish? Eating is less fun when it feels like a cow is settling in for a nice night with a David Foster Wallace book next to the fireplace in your stomach.

To mitigate the richness of heavy cream, I used spicy red pepper flakes and sweet tomatoes. The resulting pasta was exceptionally easy and seriously satisfying.

Ingredients

(serves 4-6)

• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (feel free to adjust I like mine nice and spicy)
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 6 tomatoes, diced
• 5 ounces of baby spinach
• 1 lb of pasta
• 1/3 cup of fresh minced basil
• 2 tablespoons fresh minced thyme
• 2 tablespoons fresh minced oregano
• Generous splash of red wine
• 1 quart of heavy cream
• Parmesan cheese

Steps

1. Put a pot of salted water over high heat. While you wait for it to boil:
2. Saute yellow onion in a large pot or deep pan over medium heat until soft.
3. Add garlic, sauté for another 2 minutes.
4. Add the red pepper flakes and saute for 1 minute.
5. Add the generous splash of red wine.
6. Let cook until the wine reduces by about half.
7. Pour in the heavy cream.
8. Add half of the diced tomatoes.
9. Let all of that sit over medium-low heat while the pasta cooks. Take it out when it’s about 1 minute away from being al dente.
10. Once the pasta is done, add it to the sauce in the large pot/deep pan, top that with the baby spinach, fresh herbs, and the rest of the diced tomatoes.
11. Stir until the spinach darkens a bit and is well incorporated.
12. Serve with parmesan and enjoy!