Pasta with Asparagus and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

All recipes are part of the Healthy Calendar adventure!.

Pasta! One of the ultimate cheap and easy comfort foods! I liked this meal a lot because it reminded me a lot of all these 'pasta + whatever random stuff I had' concoctions I used to make back in the day; but this time I got to utilize some more refined ingredients!

While I cooked the penne, I sauteed my asparagus. I set the asparagus aside and sauteed the sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil with garlic, oregano, and crushed red pepper flakes. I added a can of chicken broth and a tiny can of tomato paste and boiled to thicken. Then I added the asparagus and pasta and sprinkled with 'parmesan-flavored topping'. Yeah, I didn't realize I was buying Processed Flakes at the time, so we bought two. I can't wait to get through those bottles.

I always leap at the chance to make anything with asparagus, but I was a little hesitant about using sun-dried tomatoes. They tasted horrendous right from the bag, but in the end, they reconstituted in the sauce and tasted great!

I somewhat bastardized this recipe by using more pasta, basil, tomatoes, and tomato paste than it called for, but it was definitely still great. I just would assume that if you followed the recipe to the letter, the sauce would be even thinner and even less tomato-y.

Also, one improvement is that my alterations made a huge amount of leftovers!