Simply Spicy Peppered Pasta

One of those days when cooking felt tiresome and curling up in the couch and watching television sounded and felt just so perfect I still had to get motivated and cook something for dinner. I found some pasta in the cupboard and decided to make it as simple as possible. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to make something different and very tasty. In the fridge I found a bunch of asparagus and carrots and thought that would make an interesting combination with some roasted garlic. I went from being not motivated to very excited and motivated to cook all of a sudden. By adding some pepper and dry jalapeno pepper the end product got me a lot of praise from my 5 year old daughter. My entry to Dil Se Divya's blog event Think Spice: Pepper.

Gadgets:

Cutting Board
Knife
Stock Pot
Colander
Wok

Ingredients:

Spaghetti pasta - 1 box
Asparagus - 1 bunch
Carrots- 2 sliced into thin long strips
Garlic- 8 cloves cut into halves each
Pepper - 3/4 tsp (this determines the spice)
Pasta Seasoning - 1/2 tsp
Dry Jalapeno - 1/4 tsp (from Costco)
Water for boiling pasta
Butter - 3 tbsp
Olive Oil - 1 tsp
Salt


Preparation:

1. Boil water in the stock pot and cook as per the pasta instructions.

2. Heat the wok with butter and oil (this helps the butter to not brown up fast) and add garlic. Wait for it to roast and then add carrots cook for 3 minutes and then asparagus and a little salt.

3. Add pepper, pasta seasoning, dry jalapenos and toss in the cooked pasta with 1/4th cup of the pasta water to keep it moist. Serve it hot with some baguette on the side.