It just sounded good in my head and I call it sunset pasta

Hello! It has been quite a while, but sooner or later, I will be back to post. Today's recipe features saffron.

Now I don't have to tell you saffron is not cheap, to put it mildly, so I don't have it often. That said, spices do go stale and as I get older I have learned that nice things don't always need to be saved for a special occasion.

Alternately, one can do something to make an ordinary day a special occasion. Like a random Sunday after a dentist appointment.

I had some cream in the fridge from a pasta dish I'd made a couple weeks ago (I'll blog that soon), and had the urge to do a saffron cream pasta. Then, out of nowhere, I got it into my head that tomatoes would be fun to add. Specifically, one of the small square baskets of grape tomatoes that were on sale, cut in halves or quarters, and lightly salted. This will make two generous servings.

I started with a shallot, 2 Tablespoons diced, and about 2 teaspoons olive oil in a 1-quart saucepan to sauté for about seven minutes, stirring constantly until it started turning brown. From there, I added

• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk

The following ingredients went in one at a time with 5-10 seconds of stirring before I added the next:

• 2 generous pinches of saffron
• the aforementioned tomatoes
• 1/4 cup grated Grana Padano
• 3 grinds of black pepper

I let it cook down for a while, stirring every two minutes or so. In between stirring, I chopped 2 Tablespoons of fresh parsley.  Lately, I tend not to bother making a roux for cream sauces these days, instead taking the time to reduce the sauce while the salted water for the pasta comes to a boil. I had mushroom tortellini in the freezer. I added the parsley to the sauce when I put the pasta in the water. 

Between the tomatoes and the saffron, the sauce came out a rather pretty shade of sunset orange.

While the pasta was cooking, I filled a large bowl with baby spinach leaves and microwaved them on high for a minute. No water, no salt, just a quick zap is all that's needed. While I always reserve at least half a cup of pasta water to add to sauce, I didn't need any this time. Adding the drained pasta was enough and the sauce stuck nicely. It must have been some very starchy tortellini. I added the pasta to a bowl topping with a touch more parsley and more Grana Padano. I probably could have stirred the spinach in while it was in the saucepan, but I like serving things on a bed of spinach for some reason.

I'm quite pleased with this and it went pretty well with a glass of Chardonay. I did add another grind of black pepper, but I didn't want to add too much, or it would overwhelm the saffron.

Thank you for reading!