Magazines in May: Pasta with Spicy Zucchini-Tomato Sauce

Sometimes I make recipes, and I think to myself, “Sarah, this might be the best thing you’ve ever made in your life.”

Sometimes I make recipes and I think to myself, “Sarah, never do that again.  Do not release this plague on humanity.”  (Like the deep fried hot dogs.)  Incidentally, I had someone ask me what happened to the deep fried hot dogs post.  No, I’m not hiding it — I’m vaguely proud of my cooking misadventures.  What happened (I think) was that I deleted the pictures from that post from my G+ account, where all my pictures go, and so they were deleted from the post, so there were just a bunch of “Where are your pictures??” errors.  Once I find them, I’ll put that back up.

The third kind of recipe is this one.  Those are the recipes I make and think to myself, “That was fine.”  It wasn’t wonderful, it wasn’t awful. . .it was just food I put in my face that I don’t regret putting in my face.

Dennis, however, wholeheartedly disagrees.  He called this the best pasta dish I’ve ever made.  I don’t fully understand it, but I’ll take the ringing endorsement.  

(Also, he wasn’t in California yet when I made this, which might actually be the best pasta dish I’ve ever made, so he’s not fully informed.)

Finally, the “spicy” bit of the recipe title is misleading — I doubled the amount of red pepper flakes the recipe called for, and it wasn’t spicy to me at all.  I’ll give you the amount I put in, and you can cut it in half if you want, if you’re not a huge spicy fan.

Oh, and one more thing.  You may or may not notice that I used two different kinds of pasta in this recipe (rotini and bowties).  That’s only because I was trying to use up the pasta.  You can really use whatever you want, but I would recommend rotini.

3 Tbsp. olive oil 

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes

Salt

2 zucchinis, cut into small chunks

1/2 lb. rotini

1 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning

Prepare pasta as indicated on package directions.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook until the garlic is golden.

Crush the tomatoes into the skillet with your hands, and add the juice.

And 1/2 tsp. salt and simmer, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes, until thickened.  Add the zucchini and cook until crisp tender, 8 minutes or so.  Season with salt.

Combine the pasta and sauce and toss to coat.

Top with Parmesan.

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