Light And Easy Pasta Dishes For Your Weeknight

Some workdays are more stressful than others. We find that pasta helps ease our woes and pains. As we look forward to game four of the NBA Finals tonight (nice trash talk, Serge) we're planning our meals around some of our favorite easy-to-whip-up pasta dishes. There's just something about an enormous plate of spaghetti that brings a smile no matter how dreadful your day (or game) was.

• Pasta Con Sarde is a cool way to incorporate sardines into your diet. Don't worry, all your other favorite ingredients are invited, too.
• Do not fear the artichoke, with Roman-style Rigatoni al Carciofi, it's awesome.
• If you're looking to use up some leftovers look no further than the Soba Noodle Salad. It's lighter than most other pasta dishes and you can get your Asian food fix without calling for delivery.
• Who says pasta salad can't use spaghetti? Salmon and arugula pasta salad defies this and any other prejudicial pasta salad accusations.
• Strozapreti is fun to say and delicious when used in a dish, especially covered with with springy, healthy spinach pesto.
• And for the vegetarians, how about an Avocado Cream Pasta Sauce that takes fifteen minutes flat to make? Jeff Van Gundy has rants about flopping longer than that!