Spinach & Pepper Rigatoni and Mia's Breadsticks

We had a very delicious dinner this evening! Earlier today I was looking at a recipe on the back of the Kosher Salt box, and saw that we had everything, plus the recipe said to serve it with breadsticks. "Perfect!" I thought. "I've been wanting to make those breadsticks on Aspiring Homemaker for a while now."

A little while later Mother Dear happened to see the breadstick recipe I had printed off, and mentioned that she thought we were out of brown sugar, which it called for. I was pretty disappointed, so I searched high and low to make sure she was right. At the very back of one of our pantry shelves I found a couple bags of rock hard, clumpy of brown sugar. Boy did I rejoice!

Before I give you the recipes, I'd like to mention that Active Boy had me write them both down in his recipe book he is saving for when he gets married. Because of that alone should you trust that these recipes make some pretty good food here.

Spinach and Pepper Rigatoni

1 chopped red onion

1 large red pepper, cut into 1 inch strips

1/2 cup prepared garlic vinaigrette, divided

1 Tbsp. coarse kosher salt, divided

1 lb. rigatoni pasta, uncooked

10 oz. fresh baby spinach leaves, rinsed and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

In a medium skillet, saute onion and red peppers in 1 Tbsp. vinaigrette until crisp and tender, about 6 minutes. Season with 2 tsp. kosher salt; keep warm.

Cook pasta according to package directions with remaining 1 tsp kosher salt; drain.

Thoroughly toss hot pasta with spinach, pepper/onion mixture, remaining vinaigrette and Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately with garlic breasticks. Makes 6 servings.

To get the breadstick recipe, go here.