Harissa Spaghetti~What's for Dinner Thursday Addition

This recipe was just too good not to share.  The original recipe comes from Mike's blog The Iron You.  Mike is the creator of many amazing dishes.  We have tried many, and have loved them all.  His recent recipe for Harissa Spaghetti did not disappoint.

Harissa Spaghetti

*Mike used gluten free spaghetti, but you can substitute for zoodles or for any whole pasta.

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 tsp fine grain salt
4 TBS olive oil
2 TBS harissa paste (Mike shares a recipe for making your own on his blog, but we purchased ours at World Market)
1/2 lb gluten free spaghetti or any other pasta
4 C baby spinach, washed and roughly chopped
1/2 C oil-cured black olives, pitted and halved
1 TBS pine nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
Zest of 1 lemon

Directions:

Bring a big pot of  water to a boil.
In the meantime, place the garlic on a cutting board.  Crush with flat side of a knife.  Now crush and chop, crush and chop until you have a garlic paste.
Transfer garlic paste to a small bowl, add harissa paste, and olive oil. Whisk together.
Generously salt boiling water, add the pasta, and cook per package instructions.
Just before the pasta is done, add the spinach to the pasta water, count to 10, drain and set aside.
Heat the harissa dressing in the pot, add spaghetti and spinach, black olives, pine nuts and lemon zest.  Stir over the heat for a minute or so, then turn everything out onto a platter and serve.

I prefer to prep everything ahead.

The harissa paste definitely gives this dish a spicy kick, so adjust to your taste if needed.  As you all know by now...we love spicy foods!!

Enjoy.

Sharing this recipe with the lovely hosts of Thoughts of Home on Thursday.