Tonight was another Jen cooks night at our house.  I know Thomas and I have been working some crazy long hours and since I work from the house, I made dinner and gave The Cooking Husband the night off.  A couple of years ago, we went had dinner with Katie and Ryan, and Katie whipped up some really tasty pasta which not only was fast to make, but also packed with flavor.  I decided to try to re-create the pasta from dinner with the Baldwins to make a light pasta dish in no time at all.

Let’s Cook!

Pasta with Tomato, Basil and Prosciutto

1 package fresh linguine noodles

1 package thinly sliced prosciutto, chopped

1/2 onion, diced

4 tomatoes, diced

1/2 red pepper, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced (we didn’t have any large cloves left over so I used several small ones to get the right amount of garlic)

1/4 cup basil, chiffonade (fancy name for cutting it into small strips)

2 Tablespoons olive oil (for making the noodles)

1 Teaspoon chopped kalamata olives (optional)

Red Pepper flakes to taste

Parmesan Cheese to taste

To start off, you will have a good bit of chopping to do.  I chopped my red pepper and onion right away as I planned to have them cook for a little while.

Add the onions and peppers into a pan with a little bit of butter so they won’t stick and saute for 3-5 minutes over medium heat to soften the veggies a little.

Remove the onions and peppers from the heat and set aside.  Time to start the water boiling for your noodles and continue with the chopping.  I minced my garlic…

Diced my tomatoes…

And cut my basil into a chiffonade.  The easiest way to do this is to take several basil leaves and stack them on top of each other and roll them up into a tight ball.  Start slicing at the tip of the leaves down to the stems, and you will have a perfect basil chiffonade.  To me, it always makes a dish look a little more gourmet, since it looks like you took a long time to slice up the basil into even strips. I like any shortcuts that make me look like I am a master chef, which I am very far from.

Last thing to cut up is the prosciutto.  I left mine in pretty big chunks as I love prosciutto, which is very odd since I do not like bacon at all.  Just one of my personal little quirks.

By now, the water should be boiling for the noodles.  Just add them into the water and put the olive oil in with it.  The fresh noodles only take about 3 minutes to cook so be sure to stay close to the stove.

Now, it is time to drain the noodles and put it all together in a big bowl.  Here’s what mine looked like for serving.

I forgot to take a close up shot, but you get the idea.  This was a really quick and easy dinner to make and it tasted light enough for a great summer dinner.  Add the Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes to your liking.  I like mine pretty spicy so I didn’t put the pepper flakes on until after I made my bowl.  Be sure to tune in tomorrow when the Cooking Husband will return.  Also, I’m going to try to commandeer the website again to post a dessert in the next couple of weeks.  It is a rare occasion around our house that we have dessert, but it is always worth it, and I had a great sweet treat a few months ago at a party that I am dying to recreate. 

Happy cooking!