Bowties with pine-nuts, feta & greens

I saw a version of this recipe in a magazine recently, though I can't remember where. What made it memorable was the photo. Its apparent deliciousness seared itself into my brain and had me running out for bowties and pine-nuts. With our big eater off at a meeting tonight, I decided to whip this together. Took about 20 minutes tops.

Ingredients

about 1/2 pound bowtie pasta (OK, "farfalle")
olive oil
large handful of any hearty greens, I used beet greens
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 ounce (or more) feta, crumbled

Assembly

1. Boil water for pasta. Meanwhile, prepare other ingredients, including washing and slicing up the greens.
2. Put pasta to boil. At the same time, toast pine nuts in a pan (no oil needed).

Just move them around until they just start to brown and look a little greasy. Then remove from heat.

3. Next, heat some olive oil in the same pan and flash-steam the greens. You can cover with a lid if they start spitting. (It's good if they're still a bit wet from washing.)

4. Once greens have wilted, throw in garlic and stir everything around. I sluiced on some more olive oil at this point to make it a bit saucy. (That matter in the middle is the garlic I just added.)


5. When pasta is cooked per directions on package, drain and toss with more olive oil. Then mix in your greens and your pine nuts. Crumble feta over all. Serve!


My picture is not as pretty as the magazine's, but this was a fast and easy (and vegetarian) dinner!