Mom's One Pot Pasta

This recipe is ridiculously easy and fast And yet I have still managed to screw it up... twice. I'll share my failures with you in hopes that you will be able to avoid my errors.

Ingredients:
1-2 cloves garlic
28 oz can of crushed or diced tomatoes
12 oz pasta (rigatoni or penne works best - we use whole wheat noodles)
1/2 cup cream (I use half and half - it's the lowest in fat and calories)

Optional toppings:
ground beef
fresh spinach

Use a large, deep saucepan.

Saute the garlic in olive oil over medium heat - cook until you can smell the garlic, but don't let it get brown.
(You could also saute some chopped onions at this point if you so desire.)
Add the can of tomatoes and 3 cups of water.
Salt.
Bring to a boil, and add the pasta.
Cover the pasta, and check it again in 12-15 minutes. You want the noodles to have absorbed a lot of the tomato sauce.
Add the cream, stir well.
At this point, you can turn off the heat and add the fresh spinach, stirring well, and let it wilt.

You can also brown some ground beef on the side and add it, but I haven't done this.

This is a super easy and delicious way to cook a big pot of pasta and tomato sauce!

Oh, and as promised, here are the moron mistakes I made:
- Be sure to actually saute the garlic before adding it. I forgot once, and tried to add the raw garlic later. Needless to say, it went poorly.
- Use crushed or diced tomatoes, NOT pureed. The sauce is fairly tasteless with pureed tomatoes.
- The cream is important - it really thickens up the sauce well.