I’m Hungry: Plain Pasta…or Not!

It was one of those nights tonight – my husband was out, the girls were tired and hungry, we had no dinner plan and the only thing in the fridge was some leftover ham (from the slow cooker on Monday).  Top that off with the fact that my 4 year old is on a bit of a plain food kick…just butter on her toast, nothing on her burger and tonight – plain noodles.   I’m not normally one for making different food for my kids than what the adults are eating, but tonight we compromised and in the end we all had a great dinner. 

I agreed to give her plain noodles and she agreed to eat some other things on the side.  Since my other daughter and I weren’t too keen on plain noodles here’s how I worked it out. 

I boiled some whole wheat penne pasta and while it was cooking chopped up some of the ham and cooked some frozen green peas.  In a separate bowl I beat an egg with a tablespoon of olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper and some fresh grated parmesan cheese (you’ll want to double this sauce for larger portions of pasta).

Once the pasta was cooked and drained I put it back into the pot on the stove, added the egg mixture and stirred to combine.  You have to do this right away so the pasta is still hot enough to cook the egg.  You’ll know it’s ready when you start to see little bits of the egg form on the noodles and it doesn’t look like a sauce anymore (and will in turn pass as “plain”). 

At that point, I took some out for my daughter and then added in the ham and peas for my other daughter and I. It was fast, yummy and made everyone happy!  You can’t ask for more than that after a busy day!