Quick It Up

My centerpiece for the weekend, fresh from the yard

Hey, I just made that up. "Quick It Up" is a great title for a post about a last minute dinner idea, don't you think? I like it.

Anywhooo, we had a yummified stovetop shoulder roast the other day. I browned all sides of a seasoned roast in a heavy pot (I don't technically have a dutch oven but this pot works), snuck some garlic cloves and onions underneath the hunk of meat, then added some red wine to simmer on low for about 4 hours. The photo to the left is the reheating process of the leftovers on the day after. You can see how it fell off of the bone and created a nice bit of liquid.

On the first night we had the roast over a brown rice orzo mix, accompanied by some broccoli. That was pretty delicious, but would take more cooking time than I had on the second night. I decided to throw a pot of water on the stove and boil some pasta. I boiled some giant rigatoni while I crushed some garlic, heated my large skillet/wok (I don't have a real wok, sorry), and pulled out my trusty spinach-arugula mix.

I threw the garlic in the pan with some olive oil to get the aroma going. After the pasta was done, I drained it and literally tossed it in pan with the garlic. I threw in my spinach and arugula, tossed some more to wilt, then added more, then tossed more. After a pinch of salt, a grind of pepper, and a quick shave of parm, I plated the pasta to accompany the beef. 15-20 minutes, tops!

Rigatoni tossed with Spinach and Arugula - Pasta & veggies in one dish!