Roasted Garlic and Grape Tomato Pasta With Basil and Arugula

Wow, that title is a mouthful! But it's a tasty one, I promise. The mister saw this on the Food Network the other night and decided we must try it. It's a lot of garlic, and your breath will NOT be friendly afterward, but totally worth it if you're a garlic lover like we are. Super easy to make and the extra added liquid really soaks up and makes the pasta more tender and the sauce thicker and just adds that extra flavor that is so delicious. We also added shrimp to this since we're addicts.

Roasted Garlic and Grape Tomato Pasta With Basil and Arugula

Ingredients

• Salt
• 1 pound penne pasta (I used whole-wheat penne)
  
• 2 pints grape tomatoes
• 8 to 10 cloves garlic, cracked but left in skins, plus 1 clove peeled and halved
• 3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus some, for drizzling
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup grated Parmigianino-Reggiano, a few generous handfuls
• 1 cup basil leaves, about 20, torn or shredded
• 2 cups coarsely chopped arugula

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Place a pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil for the pasta. Salt water, add pasta and cook to just-shy of al dente. It needs to have a real bite left to it because it will sit in the sauce for 2 minutes later on and continue to cook. Heads up: you will need 2 ladles of starchy cooking water just before draining, about 1 1/2 cups.

Place the grape tomatoes on a cookie sheet with the garlic. Coat the tomatoes and cracked garlic with 3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and season with lots of salt and pepper. Roast 20 minutes. Take the tomatoes and garlic out of the oven. Turn the oven off.

Remove the roasted garlic from the skins and mash into a paste with the side of your knife. Transfer the garlic paste to the bottom of a pasta bowl. Using a fork, mix the garlic into 2 ladles of starchy pasta cooking water, about 1 1/2 cups. Add the tomatoes to the bowl and mash them with a potato masher until a sauce forms and tomatoes are well combined with garlic broth. Add penne, grated cheese, arugula and basil and toss a minute or 2 to allow the pasta to soak up flavors.

*Recipe from Rachael Ray, courtesy of Food Network.

**We also thawed out some frozen shrimp and tossed it in with the pasta the last couple minutes of cooking, then tossed it at the end. Yum!

Big Easy Shrimp

This is another new favorite! We tried this for the first time last week and after the first bite, my husband said, "This one is definitely a keeper!" Always words of praise from that mouth.

This is a yummy sort-of Creole-inspired dish. We served it over brown rice and it was delicious!

Big Easy Shrimp

Can substitute shrimp for scallops.

2 strips turkey bacon or Canadian bacon
1 onion, chopped
1/2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (16-ounce) can chopped tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

Cook bacon in large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Place on paper towel-lined plate to drain. Crumble when cool. Remove and discard all but 1 tablespoon drippings from skillet.

In hot drippings over medium heat, cook onion, bell pepper, and celery 5 minutes, or until tender. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes (with juice), bay leaf, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and hot-pepper sauce. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low and simmer 20 minutes. Add shrimp and bacon and cook 10 minutes, or until shrimp are opaque. Remove and discard bay leaf before serving.

*Another South Beach Diet recipe. Still working through that cookbook!