pasta with mushrooms and spinach

Think about your comfort food and you see many images .....and all images of food are almost white in color
( apart from chocolates off course ) ...all high carb food ...are you thinking of pasta often when you are in distress...

hmm...tricky situation as it does not go with your resolution to eat less carbs ( for me less simple carbs .....complex carbs are okay )....choosing whole wheat pasta is good and combining it with seasonal vegetable is so sensible ....has to be tasty too.....

A simple pasta , especially spaghetti tossed with some hot chilly oil is my favorite and when i make it healthier i add a few veggies of my choice to it........this time i was missing the sun dried tomatoes as they taste so yummy with combination of veggies.....( i use homemade n it has been ages since i made some , i am not buying a bottle of it this thinking i'll make it soon , 2 kilos of thick flesh tomatoes are waiting for their luck )....
the cheery tomatoes were good too but the chewy rich taste was missed terribly.......anyway it was a quick unplanned Sunday lunch ...a feelgood lunch.....

ingredients...

pasta of any shape , preferably tubular 1.5 cup unboiled

button mushrooms 200 gm, chopped in quarters ( any fresh mushrooms of your choice will be great )
spinach leaves ..i used 15 large leaves torn into pieces , baby spinach will be great 1-2 cups loosely packed
cherry tomatoes 10 , halved or quartered
shallots 3-4 chopped lengthwise 
garlic chopped 1 tbsp ( to taste )
red chilly flakes 1 tbsp ( to taste )
salt to taste
butter 1 tsp
extra virgin olive oil 2 tbsp
sundried tomatoes 2-3 tbsp ( optional)

procedure...

Boil the pasta as per instructions ...till al dante'......

Heat butter in a pan n add the chopped garlic even before the butter melts ( otherwise the butter may burn ) ....do not brown the garlic n just let it become soft ..

Add the olive oil ( i add olive oil later as heating the EVOO should be avoided as much as possible ) and quickly throw in the red chilly flakes too...stir to mix..

Just when the chilly flakes are aromatic (and not causing sneezing ), put in the chopped shallots and chopped mushrooms too...salt is added at this point too.....stir fry till the mushrooms and shallots get a bit translucent , n coated well with the chilly oil ...see them smoking in my kadai....

Now add the spinach leaves and toss to mix...throw in the cherry tomatoes and toss to let the cook ....do not let them disintegrate , just wrinkled and juicy cherry tomatoes is what we are aiming for....

This is the time to add the boiled pasta ....give everything a good toss and it's ready....if you are using sun dried tomatoes chop the and add them before the spinach n cherry tomatoes....they will soak up all the liquid released by spinach n cherry tomatoes...yummy..... 

The end result gets some saucy liquid due to EVOO and liquids oozing out from tomatoes n mushrooms both......the coating sauce which is obviously colorless , is so yummy that i could not resist myself from licking the kadai after emptying it...:)

Do not chop the spinach leaves finely as the whole leaves or torn in large pieces looks great for this n it's taste does not mask the individual taste of mushrooms n tomatoes.....and the tomatoes are like a burst of juiciness whenever you take a morsel with them ....if you like this in your pasta you can use more of them...or the sundried tomatoes are so good with their chewy rich taste which i missed so much.......do use them n see the comfort food getting a healthy face lift......no cheese , did you notice ??

The recipe is not low fat , but you are eating good quality fats , overall this dish is high on antioxidants.......I don't mind spending some extra money on EVVO just for this recipe and my favorite hummus......