Creamy Garlic Pasta

Like many others, I am addicted to Pinterest. A day is not complete without spending at least a few minutes browsing around for new pins to add to my boards. The recipe for Creamy Garlic Pasta has shown up in "popular" pins a couple times now, and I finally pinned it the other night and decided to try it today for lunch.

This recipe comes from the blog, The Cheese Pusher, a self-proclaimed cheese fanatic. In her recipe for Creamy Garlic pasta, she also confesses to loving garlic. I figure a recipe using carbs, cheese, and garlic cannot go wrong.

The original recipe as written is extremely indulgent. Olive oil, butter, lots of garlic (surprise!), lots of cheese (surprise surprise!), oh and heavy cream. This is one of those eat-in-moderation pastas.

Frankly when I made this I altered it fairly significantly, and I think I should still tweak it the next time I make it. The creaminess that you get from boiling the noodles in the chicken broth will allow you to cut back pretty significantly on the heavy cream and parmesan cheese without much sacrifice to flavor or texture.

 Here's the original recipe on The Cheese Pusher, with my altered recipe written below.

Serves 3-4 people

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil - Next time I am cutting to 1 Tbsp
• 3 cloves of garlic - My garlic cloves were huge. Next time I'll probably only do 2 cloves3 cups of reduced sodium chicken stock/broth
• 1/2 lb spaghetti or linguine noodles
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese - I think I could cut back to 1/4 cup
• 1/4 cup heavy cream - I think somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 cup is about right
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• 1/4 tsp parsley

Directions:

1. In a medium-sized pot, bring the olive oil to medium-low heat. Add the garlic and stir, allowing it to cook for 1-2 minutes.  Add chicken stock. Raise the heat to high and let it come to a boil.
2. Once it is at a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Reduce the stove to medium heat and mix in the parmesan and cream until completely melted. Turn off the heat and stir in the pepper and parsley. Serve immediately.