Happy Thursday and July 1st to everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying summer so far. I am excited for today’s post because I did a special collaboration with a friend of mine. I teamed up with ToniMarie, who is an independent consultant for Pampered Chef. For those of you who are not familiar with the company, Pampered Chef offers a line of kitchen tools, food products, and cookbooks for preparing food at home. Several months ago, I bought a few products from ToniMarie that I absolutely loved!! All of the kitchen tools I purchased are great for everyday use in the kitchen. I knew after using the products I purchased from ToniMarie I had to do a collaboration with her. I hope everyone enjoys the delicious Lemon Garlic Rigatoni with Spinach Dish.

Lemon Garlic Rigatoni with Spinach

Serves: 3

Ingredients

1 pound rigatoni ( if you don’t like rigatoni, feel free to use your favorite pasta)

1 small bag of fresh spinach

3-4 cloves of garlic, sliced

Oil

1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 1/2 tablespoons mascarpone

3 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

1 lemon, sliced

Salt & pepper

Instructions

Boil a large pot of salted water for the rigatoni. Once water is boiling add your rigatoni in and cook according to directions on package. Set rigatoni aside until a little later (add a little oil to rigatoni and stir, so it doesn’t stick). In a small sauté pan add butter and cook until butter melts in pan. Once butter melts add panko bread crumbs and garlic powder. Stir panko bread crumbs for about 10 minutes, or until they get toasty and a light brown color. Take pan off of heat and set panko bread crumb mixture in a small bowl. In a large sauté pan over medium heat add oil. To the oil, add sliced garlic and spinach. Add in sliced lemons, I added about five or so. (Sliced lemons are added in for flavor). Stir spinach until it starts to wilt. At this point, you can remove sliced lemons from sauté pan. Turn heat off and add mascarpone to spinach. Stir until spinach is evenly coated in mascarpone. Take the rigatoni and add it to your sauté pan with spinach. Toss rigatoni with spinach mascarpone mixture until evenly coated. Serve the rigatoni in your favorite pasta bowl and add panko bread crumb mixture and shredded parmesan cheese on top. If you want to be fancy, add a slice of lemon or two if you have any remaining. Enjoy!