What to Do with Herbs vol 1

Single Serving Pasta with Mussels

Taste & See:  If you're anything like me you are (a) often cooking for 1 (b) often looking for half-decent meals you can make with what you already have on hand and (c) stoked about your herb garden but often unsure what to do with your beautiful greenery.

But even if all of the above don't apply, you probably appreciate easy recipes that taste like you cooked without requiring much planning. Potted herbs are great for that - they give a nice fresh zing to whatever you pull out of the pantry, and you can just snip whatever you need as you go, without worrying about using up a whole bunch of herbs. Moral of the story: grow herbs.

Here's a simple dish in that vein. You can make this in about 15 minutes for one or more people. 

What you need: 
Herbs of various kinds
Dried pasta
Salt
Garlic
Steamed mussels: garlic, ginger, dried pepper, white wine
 
Note: Mussels are ridiculously cheap and easy to cook. At my bougie Brooklyn farmers' market, they're $3/lb, and a half pound feeds me for at least 2 meals. Everything else falls in the "keep on hand" category.
 
To cook mussels: Add a splash of white wine + about a tablespoon of roughly chopped garlic, 1 dried pepper broken in half, 2 chopped cloves of garlic and a half pound of mussels to a big pot. (Any of these ingredients can be omitted if you don't have it.) Cover and turn on medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until mussels open. Keeps a few days.
 
To make pasta:  Make pasta according to directions on the box. I like this with angel hair. While pasta cooks, take about 20 mussels per person out of the shells and, if cold, briefly reheat (~20 seconds in microwave). For each serving, chop about 3 tablespoons worth of assorted herbs -- I like oregano, thyme, and parsley -- and a clove or two of garlic. Mix herbs and mussels into pasta and sprinkle with salt.