This easy, creamy pasta is perfect for weeknights and comes together in less than 30 minutes

There’s a cheap, delicious way to whip up a batch of pasta with a creamy lemon flavor that will impress everyone in your orbit. Unless they hate pasta . . . which is impossible. 

I was teaching my creative nonfiction class the other day. We had just discussed “The Men We Reaped” by Jesmyn Ward and were moving to workshop student essays when I heard an angry growl. 

“Sorry, professor,” a semi-embarrassed student said while rubbing his belly, “Campus lunch was scarce and gross; I’m starving, you know how it is.” 

“Oh, I know exactly how it is,” I quickly replied. 

The class laughed, poking fun at the school’s offerings, asking me to help out some fellow writers by ordering pizza. I do this for my writing classes from time to time. Primarily for graduate students because writing a memoir is difficult, vulnerability is difficult, being judged is difficult, and we all know that greasy, cheesy slices of pizza tend to make everything better. 

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“I would order pizza if we had time; we don’t,” I said, “But you’ll need to learn how to fill up without relying on takeout and campus cuisine.” 

“Professor, you wrote so much about takeout,” my hungriest pupil pushed back, “What’s the deal? You against it now?”

“I’m not against it,” I laughed, “40-year-old me is just paying the price for consuming years of junk.” 

I then explained my college days, which seemed like so long ago. I’m sure the food would have been was great, but I lived off of cigarettes and cheap booze nonstop. I swear it felt like I only read, smoked, and drank in that order. 

I had financial aid, which allotted me a budget for campus dining, but hell no. I was too much of an aspiring artist to eat warm lunch meat, unseasoned chicken, or pigs in a blanket. 

So, my friends and I would compile our money every once in a while to cop some groceries and a bottle of booze to share, when we couldn’t afford to eat at some of our favorite restaurants. And it was during one of those nights we messed around and created our lemon pasta.