Penne with Brown Butter, Arugula, and Pine Nuts

You can never go wrong with Giada DeLaurentiis. She's my fave (you know, because I have so many). I've tried a couple of her recipes now and they were a hit each time I made them. I think I gravitate towards Giada's recipes because they are pretty simple for me to follow (I'm not a good cook) and they utilize real, whole foods. They aren't over complicated with tricky cooking techniques or too many ingredients either. This recipe was so easy to make! I recommend halving the recipe if you are cooking for two. I bought all of the ingredients to make the whole thing, but knew that I would make only half of it one night and the other half another night (the two pasta dishes I've made from her have not reheated well but they are so good fresh!).

The recipe calls for penne noodles, arugula, parmesan cheese, toasted pine nuts, grape tomatoes, half of a lemon and its zest, capers, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

The sauce is made from the olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. One thing Giada has you do is save about a cup of your pasta water (instead of pouring it down the drain when you're done) to use in part of your sauce. The starch in the pasta water helps take your sauce from homemade quality to restaurant quality. That's my own thought process, but I can't remember what she said about the starch in the pasta water and why it's important, but it's something I didn't know about before.

Looking at it in the pan, I wasn't sure how it would taste. It looked pretty but also looked like just a bunch of noodles with some salad and cheese mixed in. 

However, it was amaze-balls! Ken inhaled his. Before I met Giada and we became BFF's, getting Ken to come near my food was difficult. I can understand why. If he didn't know what "saute" meant on the back of a 11-minute meal box, I might not want to come near his food either. If I found part of the box in my 11-minute meal, I would probably run the other way, too. Just saying. But, but, but - I have come a looong way since those days, and have a couple of great meals under my belt now. This just happens to be one of those two meals. 

The other recipe of Giada's that I highly recommend is her Fusilli with Pecorino Romano and Black Pepper. It is to die for. You can find it here. The one I made in this post can be found here. Simple, easy recipes for inexperienced cooks like me to dabble in, call their own, and take all the credit! Thanks, Giada! BFF's for life!