Spaghetti con tenerumi

This dish is easy to make, it’s healthy and taste delicious. My friend and teacher Lucia make it like a minestrone or vegetable soup. You can make it as a pasta-dish, then you double the amount of pasta and add only 1/2 a cup with pasta water to the sauce. Tenerumi is leaves from a long Sicilian zucchini. If you don’t have tenerumi, you might use kale.
You need:
- extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, with the skin on
- 1 x 400g tin of whole tomatoes
- 2 bunches of tenerumi / or 400g of kale, cleaned and roughly chopped
- 150g spaghetti, preferably thin type
- salt and freshly ground pepper
This is how you make spaghetti with tenerumi:
- Put the garlic cloves with the skin on in a large pan with 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Heat gently.
- Add the tin of whole tomatoes into the pan. Stir and turn down the heat. Continue to cook for 20 minutes.

- When the sauce is ready cooked, remove the garlic. Or, if you love garlic, leave them in, as garlic-heaven surprise.
- Bring a pan of water to the boil. Add 1-2 tablespoons of salt.
- Put in the leaves and let simmer for 5 minutes.

- Break the spaghetti into pieces and boil in the same pan as the leaves.
- Undercook the pasta with 2 minutes.
- Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water and add to the tomato sauce.
- Drain the leaves and pasta. Pour into the tomato sause. Stir gently.
- Taste and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
- Leave to simmer on low heat for 2 minutes.
- Turn off the heat. Let rest for some more minutes.
- Serve with freshly ground pepper. Drizzle over extra virgin olive oil.