Lime Garlic Spaghetti with Onion Scapes & Dried Tomatoes

I love my carbs so wholeheartedly that if I don’t eat it in some form about once in two days, then I have withdrawal symptoms of sorts! Coming from a community that traditionally grows rice and eats it three times a day one way or another, that’s not surprising. So it’s no wonder I love pasta just as much. While I like most pastas, my comfort pasta dish is a simple spaghetti dish. Usually I would plump for spaghetti with my home made Marinara sauce, but I’m really not very picky.

On those days when I’m alone for lunch, I tend to make myself minimal lunches and will avoid cooking if I can. A simple pasta dish where the pasta of choice is tossed in a few ingredients is one of my options. My husband is not a pasta lover though he is partial to Ravioli with Butter and Sage. Our daughter on the other hand, can live on pasta for breakfast lunch and dinner! So it is rare that I run out of pasta.

This time I had spaghetti on hand but had run out of Marinara Sauce. I searched my fridge to see what would go well with it. I came up with limes, a bunch of onion scapes (they were in season) and the last of my previous batch of oven dried tomatoes. So I had the ingredients to fix myself some Lime Garlic Spaghetti with Onion Scapes & Dried Tomatoes.

Onion Scapes look pretty much like Garlic Scapes. They’re the flowers stalks of the onion plants and have a mild onion flavour to them. They produce really beautiful flowers when the buds open up. These flowers are not good for the onions as they take up the energy required for the onions to grow and fortunately mans we can harvest them to use. You can use Onion Scapes in pretty much most stuff where you use Garlic Scapes. Cook them into a stir-fry, or add them to omelets, frittatta, quiche, soups and salads.

My recipe is not an original recipe in that there are at least a hundred recipes for Pasta with Lime and Garlic on the net. Yet I had to share this because this pasta is something I really like and it would be a shame not to post it on the blog. The Onion Scapes lend a mild onion flavour and a nice crunch too.

Here I use a mixture of olive oil and butter because I like the taste of both. You can choose either depending on how you like it. You can substitute the lime juice with lemon as well. This is a great recipe for days when you need to put together a quick meal. It’s also very easily customized. You could finish off the dish with a light dusting of grated cheese if you like for example.

Lime Garlic Spaghetti with Onion Scapes, Dried Tomatoes & Pine Nuts

An easy one dish meal of spaghetti cooked with lime, garlic, onion scapes, sun-dried tomatoes, parsley and toasted pine nuts

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Course Main Dish

Cuisine Italian

Servings 2 servings

Ingredients

  

• 200 gm spaghetti
• 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup chopped onion scapes
• 1/2 tsp garlic paste
• 6 sundried tomatoes chopped
• 1 tsp lime zest
• 1 tsp dried parsley fresh is great if you have it
• 1 tsp red chilli flakes
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp lime zest
• 1 tsp dried parsley fresh is great if you have it
• 1 tsp red chilli flakes
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
• Salt to taste

Instructions

 

• Boil the spaghetti in salted water till it is cooked “al dente”. Drain and keep aside. Save about a quarter cup of the pasta water in case you want to add moisture to your spaghetti.
• Heat the oil and butter in a pan. Add the garlic and sauté for about a minute till the raw smell disappears, do not allow to burn. Add the sun-dried tomato pieces and stir for a couple of minutes.
• Stir in the spaghetti. Add the lime zest, parsley and chilli flakes and gently mix so the spaghetti is well coated. Take off the heat and stir in the lime juice.
• Divide between two plates and sprinkle the toasted pine nuts on top. Serve. Some grated cheese is optional.