Baked Lemon Pasta

First and foremost....a big fat shout-out to all my favorites who made this past weekend absolutely fantastic! My adpi girls + wolfpack football + nights out in Raleigh = "We watch the season pull up its own stakes. And catch the last weekend of the last week. Before the gold and the glimmer have been replaced. Another sun soaked season fades away. You have stolen my heart. You have stolen my heart." - Dashboard
Anyway,

I try to watch how much money I spend on food because lets be serious, at 25, life is getting pretty expensive. Therefore I am ALWAYS cooking on a budget. I make meals I can eat for three days straight and have very few ingredients.

This is one of them and it is OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD!

It tastes expensive, but is far from it!....and with the July weather we have been experiencing in November, its light and fresh for a 74 degree evening!

Baked Lemon Pasta

Ingredients

1 pound thin spaghetti

4 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 whole lemon, juiced and zested

2 cups sour cream

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

plenty of grated Parmesan cheese

flat-leaf parsley, chopped

extra lemon juice

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook spaghetti until al dente.
In a skillet, melt butter with olive oil over LOW HEAT. When butter is melted, add minced garlic. Squeeze lemon juice into the pan. Turn off heat.
Add sour cream and stir mixture together. Add lemon zest and salt. Taste, then add more salt if necessary. Pour mixture over drained spaghetti and stir together, then pour spaghetti into an oven safe dish.
Bake, covered, for 15 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t bake too long or the pasta will dry out.)
When you remove it from the oven, squeeze a little more lemon juice over the top. Top generously with Parmesan cheese, then chopped parsley. Give it a final squeeze of lemon juice at the end.
Serve with crusty French bread and a simple green salad.