Yum 5: Whore's Pasta

I know everybody (can there be an "everybody" if nobody's reading your stuff?) wants to know this. My super-simple, quick, go-to dinner, the one I make more than any other, especially in the wee small hour of the morning (GREAT Sinatra song, kiddies), is pasta puttanesca (loosely translated from the Italian: the whore's pasta). A total kitchen dummy could make it. Here it is:

1) Pour some decent olive oil into a skillet.

2) Dice up a head of garlic -- note I said "head," not just a clove -- and toss it in the skillet.

3) Sprinkle in a sizable dose of red pepper flakes. 

4) Saute at fairly high heat for a couple of minutes.

5) Add sliced sweet bell pepper (red, yellow or orange) and chopped (and, if you want, seeded) grape or sweet cherry-esque tomatoes. 

6) Throw in a spoonful or two of jarred capers (pungent little bitches).

7) Chop up maybe a dozen pitted kalamata olives; throw them into the skillet. If you choose, squeeze in some fresh lemon juice (totally optional).

8) Toss in some pine nuts.

9) Sprinkle with salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

10) Let everything saute at medium to high heat until it kind of sticks to the skillet. It should be pasty rather than liquidy.

11) While that's going on, boil water and cook linguine or angel hair. When that's done, toss it into the skillet and mix everything together.

12) Pour it into a bowl or onto a plate; top with parmigiano-reggiano or, if you prefer, cheaper parmesan cheese.

That's it. Serve it with a big salad. (On a flat, square plate, I take a mound of spring mix and surround it with things like avocado, carrots, a few grape tomatoes, apple/blood orange/pear/peach and whole almonds.) Pop open some red wine if you dare.