Whole wheat artichoke spinach pasta with tahini sauce

It may not look like much, and I wasn't expecting much, but it was surprisingly creamy and delicious.

We were out of money for a few days so I needed a dinner I could make with pantry/freezer staples, and luckily I had some parmesan cheese to grate up.

First I added a sliced shallot to some olive oil. Once browned, I added about 3 cloves of garlic (it was 7 but they were VERY tiny center-of-the-bulb cloves lol). Once the garlic was fragrant, I added a jar of drained quartered artichoke hearts. Sautéed them for a few minutes with some dried Italian seasoning. Pepper would be a good addition but my wife is sensitive to it. (So I just added cracked pepper to my bowl at the end.)

Then added half a box of whole wheat rotini pasta and a little over 2 cups of chicken broth. Once bubbling I set a timer for the long end of the package cooking time, 11 minutes in my case. You have to stir pretty often with this small amount of liquid so don't stray too far from the pan here.

After the timer went off and the liquid was reduced, pasta cooked al dente, I added about 2.5 tablespoons of tahini, a small lemon worth of lemon juice, and some grated parmesan cheese, stirring to combine. After that I decided it needed some green so I added some frozen chopped spinach and cooked just til thawed and warmed. Fresh, added earlier, would have been better.

Not fancy or pretty but tasty, easy, and a good way to use pantry staples. Nutritional yeast would be a good substitute for the parmesan too, making it vegan (as long as your broth is also vegan). I actually would have used nooch, to reduce dairy fats, but I was out.

If I had some grape or cherry tomatoes to add, that would have been great as well.