A True Comfort Dinner

Tonight was one of those nights where I knew I wanted one of those comfort dinners....something that when you eat it, you feel sooooo good afterwards!  For me, that is pasta with something.... a one-pot meal.  So here goes.

I was looking for ground turkey,  but had ground pork in my freezer, so I defrosted it and cooked it.  When done, I started a bowl of ingredients to add to my pasta.  Next up is to cook up about 1/2 of a Vidalia onion.

When transparent, I add that to my bowl.  Now for seasonings.... definitely salt and pepper, basil, parsley, and crushed red pepper.  The rest of the ingredients will be fresh.

Other than cooking the pasta, the rest of the ingredients are fresh.  I cut up about 10-12 slices of prosciutto... I just kept adding it until I thought there was enough for that yummy flavor.  I cut up maybe a cup of Kalamata olives, and about 5 compari tomatoes.   I dump these right into my bowl.  No need to cook them.  The heat from the cooked pasta is plenty to take the chill off.

 While I am adding to my "ingredient bowl," I start cooking my pasta.  I only make 1/2 a box due to the fact that there are only 3 people eating these days.  Normally, I would have cooked the whole box!  This is the hard part for me.....downsizing!

I crush about 4 cloves of garlic and saute in a generous amount of olive oil because I want the garlic to flavor the oil.  Once it has cooked, but not gotten too brown, I scrape all of the oil and the cooked garlic into my bowl.

Time to taste!  Mine definitely needed more salt, pepper and basil.  I also shook in a bunch of Parmesan cheese, as well as a few passes around the bowl with the olive oil bottle.

Here's my bowl of ingredients to add to my pasta....   so much deliciousness!

So I mix my ingredient bowl with my pasta, and there you go.  I think I drizzled a little more olive oil, a few more sprinkles of Parmesan cheese, and voila!

Shannon was so hungry by the time I got this done!  She didn't want me to add anything else!  I probably would have added some spinach if I had some, and pine nuts.... for the crunch.  But, fortunately it tasted yummy as is.

This is definitely a nice, light dinner that can be adapted to whatever ingredients you have on hand.  It's all about the flavor!  Enjoy.