Leek & Spinach Rigatoni

Midweek meals tend to be the recipes I struggle with most. Trying to find the right balance of wholesome, quick and above all else tasty can be a little hard when you are away from work all day. I tend to batch cook at the weekends for when we are working on long shoots but sometimes life isn’t so planned out.

I try to keep enough fresh ingredients in the fridge during the week so when I get home I can just throw something together that doesn’t take a huge amount of effort but I’m left feeling satisfied. Pasta is always the best ingredient to centre around a quick meal so we tend to fall back on it regularly especially for meatless dishes such as this one.

I first featured this recipe in the Dutch magazine Foodies but I thought it worth sharing for anyone trying to use up some leftover leeks or crème fraîche. I’d love to hear from you if you give it a try. Let me know in the comments or I can usually be found hanging around Instagram.

Serves 4 

Ingredients
Knob of butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large leeks, sliced lengthways
400g rigatoni pasta (or any type of pasta)
200ml tub crème fraîche
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
225g spinach leaves

Method
Melt the butter with the oil in a large pan, add in the leeks and splash in a little hot water.
Cover and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until no longer squeaky.
While the leeks are cooking, cook the pasta in some boiling water that has been well salted.
Meanwhile, tip the crème fraîche and wholegrain mustard into the leeks and season well with salt and pepper. Take the leeks off the heat and drain the pasta. Keep back some of the starchy water about 1 cup. Then tip the pasta into
the sauce and stir, adding enough starchy water to make the sauce coat the pasta. Stir in the
spinach, a big handful at a time, until it wilts, splashing in a little more water if needed.

Sprinkle over some parmesan and a little olive oil and serve straight away.