Lazy Mama Pasta!

There's been very little culinary magic on my particular homefront thanks to an exhausting amount of editing, except for one special little lunch where I finally decided I needed more nutritional and gastronomic goodness than a slice of toast and the ubiquitous smear of Bovril.

{My Italian Mama alter-ego saves me from yet another slice of toast & Bovril!}

And so, one frazzled, overworked day at home, I created this little pasta-lunch which I call my 'Lazy Mama Pasta'!
I turned the stove on (one of this little mini stove/oven thingys - perched atop a very special oak cabinet) to boil up a small pot of water for my dubiously 'authentic' Italian fettucine. While the water took its usual age to heat to boiling to point, I reached for my culinary cure-all: garlic. And not just a sedate little clove or two, but 4 juicily fat ones! A fellow gastronaut-in-arms bought me an exquisite garlic chopper I have been unable to live without for the last 4 years ---- a half-an-apple sized clear pespex 'car' whose lid pops open to receive the peeled garlic cloves, and then - as you push the wheels along your worksurface, the blade inside the 'car' slices an' dices the garlic to chunky perfection. What I cherish about this, is how all the fullness and flavour is used, compared to that piddly garlic-crusher puree that's squished out into meek sauces, stews and soups!
Anyhow, onward ho! Frozen spinach whizzed till 'blanched' in the microwave (a pet-hate of my slow-loving nature, but sometimes unavoidable when juggling motherhood and working from home.) Feta out the fridge.

1. Ever so gently golden-up the garlic in olive oil. Scent with crushed black pepper, and salt according to taste.
2. Add the spinach, and allow the garlic-infused oil to work its magic on all that defrosted, supermarkety ordinariness.
3. Pasta ready, throw in the spinach/garlic - and crumble as much feta as you desire over the top, and - voila: easy luxury-on-the-cheap!

This'd work gorgeously if you replaced the spinach with either tomatoes&basil or peas&mint! But whatever you do ------ DON'T FORGET THE GARLIC!