pearls and pasta: Lemon Garlic Spaghetti

***First off, I must apologize for how lousy my pictures have been lately. I haven't been using my camera, just my phone. So even though this meal doesn't look as fabulous in pictures as it did on my plate, I assure you it was MY FAVORITE SPAGHETTI EVER!!!***

Anywho, after the last pasta dish that I made that had lemon and parmesan in it, I was a little afraid to make this one (Daniel did NOT Like the last one). But I have been lusting over this recipe for a lemon garlic spaghetti that I saw on Pinterest about a month and a half ago. Now, in my opinion, there is NEVER enough lemon (if you've ever had the pleasure of watching me drink a glass of water you'd notice I put nearly an entire lemon in one glass... and that's still not enough) so I knew that with just HALF a lemon for this ENTIRE meal it couldn't possibly turn into the disaster of the last lemon pasta meal. Needless to say, I was looking forward to this meal ALL day! And mommy wanted the pasta too so I made her a vegan version with lots of lemon (she loves lemon almost as much as I do). Its just the right hint of lemon, and the crunch of the pine nuts with the garlic oil, OMG. It's simply DIVINE! It's a very light dish that you pasta-loving readers of mine will LOVE!!!

What you'll need:
1 box whole wheat spaghetti
1/2 cup grated parmesan
3 tsp. olive oil
4-5 clove garlic
Freshly ground black pepperJuice from 1/2 lemon
3 tbs. toasted pine nuts (whatever, that's just a number I threw out there. The more the merrier!)
About 6 basil leaves, chiffonaded (remember, thats just a fancy word for stacking them on top of each other, rolling them up like a cigar, and running your knife across to create long, thin strips)

1. Boil a large pot of water. Once it's boiling, add a handful of KOSHER salt (remember, doing this will flavor the pasta, pretty much the only chance you get to add flavor to the pasta itself).

2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a pan and sauté the garlic until it is JUST starting to brown around the edges. IMMEDIATELY remove it from the heat. Congratulations, you've just made garlic infused olive oil :).

3. Add the oil and the toasted pine nuts to a large bowl (if your pine nuts aren't toasted, then heat them in a pan for a few minutes. Once you start to smell them, they're finished. Remove them from the heat and add them to the bowl).

toasting the pine nuts

real

vegan

4. Once the pasta is ready, drain it and add it to the bowl. Toss it together and add the lemon juice and parmesan. Grind some pepper over the top and garnish with the chopped basil.