Smitten Food: Smitten Kitchen's Spaghetti With Lemon & Olive Oil

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs. It's safe to say I'm seriously smitten with Smitten Kitchen. (I know, I know, it's confusing ... two totally different sites.)

This pasta could not be simpler to make, and the freshness of its lemon and basil flavors are making me even more anxious for spring's arrival.

Lemon zest and juice, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese and spaghetti tossed in a light sauce of olive oil and cream—what's not to like?

It has all the markings of what makes a perfect dish for me these days: quick, delicious, unfussy and kid-friendly. 

Swiss Chard with Parmesan

Isn't everything better with olive oil and Parmesan? I say yes.

I'd neglected the bunch of red Swiss chard from our CSA offering long enough, so in a moment of crazy ("I can TOTALLY cook this while Benjamin is squirming and fussing in his highchair!"), I made this.

I started out with a big pot of salted boiling water. I've sauteed chard before, but that seemed too labor-intensive, for some reason. From there, I wasn't sure what I'd do next. I removed the leaves from the stems, and then chopped them roughly. After consulting Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" — the most stained, most dog-eared, most used cookbook in my kitchen, by far — I went ahead and chopped the stems, too. They reminded me of beets, with their earthy smell and ruby hue.

I threw the stems into the water first, for 5 minutes, followed by the leaves for another 5 minutes. Bittman said for the simplest preparation, you could throw in some butter or olive oil or vinegar. So naturally, I put in all three — about a tablespoon of butter, a generous swirl of extra-virgin olive oil and a few glugs of balsamic vinegar, plus salt and pepper. I didn't measure; it can all be done to taste.

And since there was a wedge of Parmesan on the counter already from the pasta I'd made Benjamin for lunch, I thought, heck, why not? I grated some over the top, and it melted in, adding a nice salty creaminess.

The best part? My kid liked it, too.