A skeptic becomes a believer: frying pan pasta

Well, ragazzi,  GRAZIE MILLE for all of the love with the post on ribollita.  Dare Annalena quote Sally Field?  No, she will not do that.  Grazie dolce a tutti.

So, we will have YET ANOTHER  post.  And this one presents a recipe which Annalena approached with much skepticism. It promised a fast approach,  and a good finish.  But it used ONLY one quart of water, and everything cooked in a frying pan.  So, as an old school Italian American, Annalena was skeptical.

Ragazzi, you MUST make this dish.  It is SO easy, SO delicious, and SO simple to clean up.  Please, do it.

Here are the ingredients Annalena used.  You can vary this:

 What you see here are kale, ripped off of the stem, and a lemon.  You also see about 12 ounces of pasta and some olive oil.  You also see split, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and parmesan cheese. 

AND... there is one more ingredient, the most important one:

Yes, ragazzi.  That's water.  One quart of it.  And that's all you're going to need.  And we're going to be finished in about 20 minutes. 

Put the raw pasta, the tomatoes, the grated rind of a lemon, and 1/4 cup of olive oil in a frying pan:

Do nothing with this yet.  Pour your water into a separate pot, and bring it to boil:

This won't take long.  And when it boils, pour this into the frying pan, and add a bit of salt:

Take the cover to this frying pan, and cover the mix.  Leave it alone until it comes to the boil.  You'll know.  You'll hear rattling, like a cat trying to get out of a closed room. 

See what you have after that six minutes?  Now, when you take the cover off of the pot, add the kale:

Keep this boiling, for about 3 more minutes:

And at this point, you are almost done.  Turn off the flame, and add about 3/4 of a cup of grated cheese, and stir this up.  You'll move this to plates.  And you'll have this left:

DON'T THROW THIS OUT.  There is WAY  TOO MUCH FLAVOR IN THIS.  So just pour equal amounts of it over the pasta.  And then, take about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, and you have a meal:

 There are undoubtedly other vegetables you can use with this.  For example, broccoli rabb.  Or Swiss chard, or spinach, or so many other greens.  The Guyman suggested  peppers.  That sounds good.  Play with your imagination.

And what have you got to clean?  A frying pan, and two plates. 

As the Monkeys said,  "Annalena is a believer.