RICOTTA & LEMON PASTA

When I was in NYC for the show, we didn't really have time for many activities other than eating dinner. Which, as you may know, is a huge activity in New York. We met up with a friend of mine from college and he promised to take us to the best Cuban restaurant in the world. Apparently this place no longer exists so we moved on to plan B. We went to Chelsea Market and found a tiny restaurant there where I had one of the best pastas of my life. Luckily for me, it was so simple that recreating it at home was a breeze.

Ingredients:

fresh fettuccine
1 cup ricotta cheese
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
the zest from one lemon
the juice from one lemon
1 cup peas
1/4 cup chopped, fresh mint
salt and pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to taste

Directions:

1. Boil your pasta. While it's boiling, saute your garlic in olive oil.

2. Add your lemon zest to your garlic and oil along with the red pepper flakes.

3. Once the pasta is cooked, add all other ingredients to the pan with the garlic and toss until incorporated. You can add a little of the starchy cooking water to turn the ricotta into more of a cream sauce or you can leave it out.

4. That's it, it's so simple and so good.

Notes: The original restaurant pasta also had pancetta as an ingredient but I asked for it to left out. So definitely add pancetta if you like, I'm sure it's super yummy.

**Image via Once Upon a Plate**