Two-pan pasta with spinach, walnuts and lemon

Pasta and macaroni Italian cuisine

Inspired by Bonnie Slotnick's one-pan pasta with spinach and goat cheese from Colu Henry's Back Pocket Pasta, this one omits the goat cheese to accommodate toddlers not yet enlightened by the tangy and chalky cheese. Here instead, white wine, crème fraîche, and reserved pasta cooking liquid make a light sauce that nicely coats the noodles. This white wine-crème fraîche-pasta water sauce can be used in countless other combinations and is particularly good with seafood—this is what I use when I make linguini with clams—so feel free to adapt the vegetables/other add-ins to taste. To clean spinach: Fill a large bowl with cold water. Add spinach, submerging it below the surface. Let sit while water boils. Dirt will settle to bottom of bowl. Left spinach out with a spider, slotted spoon, or your hands and drop directly into the pot with the pasta when directed — no need to dry it, and it’s preferable not to drain it, which would cause the dirt that has settled to the bottom of the bowl to re-coat the spinach. To toast and clean the walnuts: In a large skillet, toast the nuts over low heat keeping a close eye. Once they begin to turn brown, transfer them to a tea towel, rub their skins and squeeze them to bread them up. Transfer them to a sieve and shake to remove some of the papery skin. Transfer cleaned walnuts to a bowl and set aside, leaving any papery skin behind. This sounds kind of fussy, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t feel like it. Pasta: Any pasta you like is fine, though the long shapes, for whatever reason, are nice here. I like bucatini and fettuccine—I may even prefer fettuccine (not sure why?).