It was a chilly night and the warm laundry, fresh out of the dryer, was totally sprawled all over me. While folding three loads of laundry, I decided to watch the movie, Chef. Clearly, the name got my attention. I had no idea what it was about but if the name has anything to do with food, I AM IN. I was like 20 minutes into the movie and only about 1/4 laundry folded, my stomach started growling and my mouth started watering at the sight of Jon Favreau cooking this parsley spaghetti! I could smell the flavors through the TV screen! Ahh it was beautiful...and probably my favorite scene of the movie!

Fast forward to the next day...I couldn't stop thinking about this parsley spaghetti!! I HAD to make it! I re-watched that scene from the movie, took a video of that scene as reference, and made the spaghetti by winging the proportions of the ingredients. The end result was nothing but scrumptious x 100!! I guarantee that you will like this recipe as much as I did!

The wonderful thing about this recipe is that you can modify the ingredients to your taste preference. Feel free to add more garlic, less crushed red pepper, and go to town with the parsley! Just one thing... I highly recommend using curly leaf parsley because it is softer than flat leaf parsley. The texture of the soft curly leaves will be pleasing to your mouth compared to the thick flat leaves.

Ingredients

1 cup densely packed curly leaf parsley
4-6 cloves of garlic (+/- adjust per your taste)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp crushed red peper (+/- adjust per your taste)
1/8-1/4 tsp salt (+/- adjust per your taste), plus a few more pinches for boiling spaghetti
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
About 1/4 lb uncooked spaghetti. If you don't own a kitchen scale, just hold the spaghetti sticks with a tight hand grip and gauge the diameter to be approximately the size of a quarter.

Steps

Large pot: Bring a large pot of water to boil (you can work on Step 2 while the water comes to a boil). Add a few good pinches of salt and boil the spaghetti per package directions. Drain the water and set the spaghetti aside.
Cutting board & knife: Either thinly slice or mince the garlic cloves. I chose to go half and half.
Medium size pan: Heat oil on medium heat.
Add garlic, sprinkle a pinch of salt, and cook for about 1 minute or until the garlic softens.
Remove the pan from heat, wait 15 seconds and then add crushed red pepper. The reason for doing this is to avoid the crushed red pepper from burning....and preventing a cough attack from the smoke it creates.
Return the pan to the stove on medium heat, immediately add cooked spaghetti, and toss it around lightly.
Add parsley, lemon juice, salt, and toss well.
Bowl, plate or eat off the pan: Enjoy the deliciousness.

Prep time: 10-15 minutes | Cooking time 5-7 minutes | Serves 1 (recipe can be easily doubled)