Mark Corrigan, when he's not committing social atrocities in front of his friends, family, employers, coworkers, or random strangers, often commits them in front of the various loves of his life. In his latest desperate ploy for domestic bliss, he mashes together his romantic cheesy pasta dinner with some hastily procured pantry items - with lots of lettuce. Start 2018 off on a painfully awkward note with Mark's 'Moroccan' pasta and cocktails.
Rinse and dry one whole can of garbanzo beans. Toss them in a bowl with olive oil and salt. Then spread them evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet and roast on 400° for 20-30 minutes or until brown and crisp.
Transfer beans to a bowl and toss them with plain sweet paprika and set aside.
Start by putting some olive oil in a pan and sauté a small diced onion, a small diced pepper, and one crushed clove of garlic. Let them sweat it out until fragrant and translucent.
Add pinch of cumin, a pinch of smoked paprika, a hefty shake of cayenne, and a generous jostling of turmeric. Let these flavors get to know each other a little bit before adding a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes.
Smash them up and stew them down for about 30 minutes until the harsh raw tomato flavor has gone away.
Thoroughly puree the tomato sauce in a high powered blender until extremely smooth.
Set aside about half the sauce in a small saucepan to keep warm and in the remaining half add ½ cup of feta cheese. Process to combine.
Butter 2 ramekins and set aside.
Cook one box of pasta or make your own (which you can learn how to do here on Basics With Babish) and add pasta to the feta sauce. Toss to combine and twirl up some pasta into the buttered ramekins.
Using a fork and spoon, put the pasta to the sides, creating a hole in the middle. Then bake at 400° for 10 minutes.
Remove ramekins from the oven and run a small paring knife around the outside of the ramekin to loosen it. Crack an egg in each of the wells you created and place back in the oven to bake for 10-15 minutes until the whites are set but yolks are runny.
Invert pasta in ramekin onto an interim plate while we start plating.
Spoon some of the non-feta sauce into a pool on the bottom of the plate and top with sautéed spinach.
Place pasta with egg on top and add some of the garbanzo beans as a delicious garnish.
Add olive oil and crushed garlic to a saucepan.
Add spinach, salt and pepper, and cook to desired tenderness.