I've been horrible about actually making myself dinner recently. It's hard to get motivated to make dinner for one. The list of excuses is a mile long: I've been busy. I've got leftovers. A scrambled egg, stir fried veggies and a slice of toast is easy. Friends are going out to dinner and invite me to tag along. I am making my own tapas--carrot sticks and hummus, olives, bread, baked red peppers, mushrooms and potatoes.

Anyhow, two days ago during an exam that I was proctoring I started making a list of dishes that I like to cook. You can make a list like this and still make sure that the students are cheating. The nice thing about lists is that they make you feel productive even though in all actuality you've walked around the classroom for 2 hours and 15 minutes staring at kids and wondering how much time is left until the exam is done. For the record when you start checking at the 25 minute mark, the exam feels <em>really</em> long.

So when I saw <a href="http://pinterest.com/karolinkabg/things-to-eat/" target="_blank">this beautiful photo of pasta on pinterest</a> yesterday, I knew that I had to make it. If only because I had all of the ingredients in my refrigerator. And how often does that happen?!

Enter: lemon, arugula and pasta in a cream sauce.

This is not a combination I could have ever dreamed up--even on a good day--but it's incredible. Moreover, it's also super easy. This is my kind of cooking: tasty and easy with a few fresh ingredients. Oh and it looks fancy.

I ended up taking <a href="http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2010/04/what_to_do_with_meyer_lemons.html" target="_blank">this recipe</a> and making it my own. Here's what I did.
<ul>
	<li>Boil pasta--um however much you want to eat. I went with about two handfuls.</li>
	<li>Wash a lemon and then grate about 2 tablespoons of lemon peal into a large bowl.</li>
	<li>Add a couple of big handfuls of arugula to the bowl. You can get this for 2.99 leva at Billa.</li>
	<li>Check on the pasta.</li>
	<li>Grate some cheese on top of the arugula. Do this to taste. I only had cheddar so that's what I used. You could use parmesan or even kashkaval.</li>
	<li>Drain pasta but make sure to reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water.</li>
	<li>Add pasta to the bowl.</li>
	<li>Spoon in one very large tablespoon of sour cream (or if you live in Bulgaria you could use what I used, the yogurt like smetana).</li>
	<li>Mix this all up and then add some of the starchy pasta water that you reserved to thin out the sour cream and to make everything stick together like a sauce. Basically the hot water melts the cheese a little bit and makes the arugula a little limp but don't worry, it's perfect.</li>
	<li>Top this dish off with salt and pepper to taste.</li>
	<li>Then I cornered my little sister C. on gmail chat and told her all about the dish. Then I made her promise to make it too. She promised.</li>
</ul>
This dish is wildly flavorful. I loved it. So much so, I might make it again tomorrow night. Arugula is a little bitter, lemon is bright and the sauce is mild and creamy. A little freshly ground pepper pulls the whole dish together with a slight bite.

Really, you'd be crazy not to make this dish. Oh and if the fact that it doesn't have meat in it turns you off, you could easily add chicken or something like salmon to the dish. That would be good too, if it's your thing.