Pasta with Caramelized Onions and Spinach

I love caramelized onions, so when I saw this recipe for Pappardele with Caramelized Onions and Parmesan in the blog Cook Like a Champion, I had to bookmark it. The original recipe comes from Everyday Food.

I made this the other night with a few slight changes. I added spinach, and had to use fettucine since I couldn't find pappardele anywhere - weird, right?

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 package (8.8 ounces) pappardele pasta or 8 ounces fettuccine
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 ounces Parmesan, shaved with a vegetable peeler
• Added: 1 bag fresh baby spinach
• Next time will add: 1/4 c dry white wine

Directions

• In a large skillet, heat oil over medium. Add onions and thyme; season with salt and pepper. Cover, and cook, without stirring, until onions have released their liquid, about 5 minutes. Uncover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until deep golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes more. When bottom of skillet darkens, add a few tablespoons water, and scrape up browned bits with a wooden spoon (you may need to do this 2 or 3 times).
• Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When onions have about 10 minutes left to cook, add pasta to water in pot, and cook until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water; drain pasta, and return to pot. I didn't return the pasta to the pot...see below
• I didn't do this: Add onions and butter to pasta in pot; season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine. Instead, I added spinach to the onion pan, and then added the pasta and pasta water. There was some great flavor in the pan from caramelizing the onions, so I wanted to make use of that by mixing the dish in the onion pan. Next time I think I'd deglaze the pan with white wine before adding the spinach and pasta.
• Gradually add enough pasta water to create a thin sauce that coats pasta. Serve pasta topped with Parmesan.

My only mistake was that I pulled out my julienne slicer instead of my vegetable slicer, so I had thin strips of Parmesan. They tasted the same, but weren't as pretty as the slices of Parm in the original picture.

This was good. Very sweet, but good.