Tuesday, September 14, 2010

My version of Spaghetti with Spinach and Coppa!

I have been reading the Tuesday Easy Peasy Dinner Winners over here for the last few weeks and been quite inspired. I work three days a week and often find it hard to be inspired to cook decent meals for the family on those days. The kids get a warm midday meal at childcare so I feel less guilty about vegemite sandwiches or baked beans the days they get them for dinner!

I don't claim to be a masterchef of any description. I can cook (generally following a recipe). I have a massive collection of recipe books - because I like the pictures but I rarely use them, tending to rely on my tried and true favourites. Although, we do challenge ourselves to cook something new a couple of times a month - just for variety, and to try and add some new faves to our repetoire! That's how we came across the Spinach and Coppa spaghetti from the Women's Weekly Italian Cooking Class book.

Grab...
olive oil
1 clove of crushed garlic
small red capsicum (finely chopped)
small brown onion (finely chopped)
1 small red chilli chopped (or the equivalent from a jar or tube for us!)
6-8 slices of smoked ham (finely chopped)
baby spinach leaves (finely chopped)
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook everything but the spinach for a few minutes. Then add the spinach and cook until its wilted.
In the meantime cook some spaghetti (we like the wholemeal). When its ready, drain it and add it to the frying pan and mix through the sauce.
Serve with grated parmesan cheese. I love to use my Microplane grater with a block of parmesan - feels very sophistocated, especially since we're not!!

Yummo!

The most time consuming thing is the cutting. I often use scissors to cut the spinach leaves, and always use my "stick blender with food processor attchment" to chop the onions and garlic (quick with no tears). Matilda loves to help with dinner so if we're in less of a hurry she will cut the capsicum or ham or both.

3 comments:

emma @ frog, goose and bear said...

This looks great! I think I'll have to give this one a go! Thanks for joining in!

Sarah said...

looks yummy ange - and quick which is always good! I would love a microplane, will have to put it on the Christmas list (is it too early for a Christmas list?). What is coppa?

dillpickle said...

That sounds yummy! We have an excess of spinach in our garden at the moment, so different ways to use it are always appreciated!!