I love pasta. I love its shapes, I love its sauces, I even like saying pasta because it makes me remember happier times when I had pasta and wasn’t just saying it in a mirror three times to force it to appear. If possible, I would spend my days making elaborate dishes from scratch, feeding the people I care about and anyone who looks like they say that they’re gluten free, but only because it makes them seem more interesting. Sadly, like Wile E. Coyote, my countless attempts are foiled by that fake-but-not-fake-then-fake-again-tunnel-on-the-side-of-a-cliff: money. Even though you could get 3,640 calories for $19.94 for your date at a place that has a scarily large clown as its mascot, today I will guide you through making a healthier, more plentiful, and honestly, more likely to get you a second date than the smelly-but-I-don’t-know-what-that-smell-actually-is atmosphere that populate an area larger than the country of Greece.

Obviously we need to start with pasta. I like penne from a box that costs between $1.50-$3. That’s the sweet spot for pricing; good enough to not taste like cardboard and cheap enough to not blink while buying 10 at once. For your sauce, stick to alfredo. It’s easier to take an inexpensive alfredo to the next level than a tomato-based sauce. Along with fresh spinach, broccoli, chicken breasts, and parmesan cheese, your grocery bill will be about $20, but will seem like a million times that once you’re done cooking.

First, the chicken. Marinate in a mixture of pepper, paprika, honey, soy sauce, brown sugar and red wine that has been heated and cooled before it is combined with the chicken in a ziplock bag for at least an hour. This will add a nice deep purple color to your meal and make this chicken among the best you’ve ever had. Cooking the meat is simple: Dump the marinade and the chicken into a pan and cook on medium heat. The marinade will continually cook down until it is a beautiful dark purple on the outside of your chicken. You want your meat to be fully cooked, but not dry. Cut into it and check to make sure everything is to your liking.

Now the pasta and the sauce. Follow the directions on the box of for dente, with the addition of salt and olive oil to your water. This will not only flavor your pasta, but keep it from sticking. Heat up sauce in a small pan adding extra parmesan cheese, pepper, basil and a dash of flour. The flour will help thicken up your sauce so it sticks to the pasta better.

While the water is heating up and the sauce is simmering, steam your broccoli until it takes on the shade of green more commonly seen in the Hulk, and provides enough push from your fork stabs to indicate it’ll have a satisfying snap when you bite into it. For the spinach, wilt it in a slightly oiled/buttered pan until it shrinks to a comically small size.

Now everything is ready to be assembled to get that special someone to break out into Frank Sinatra from your wonderful, cost effective, loving cooking.

Combine the spinach, pasta and sauce making sure to coat every piece. Attention to detail is key as how it looks will be a significant part of its appeal. After you have gotten a quick forearm workout from mixing, add your beautiful creation to a plate along with the brilliantly green broccoli and the royal-looking chicken. Even though I personally like to mix everything together, some people don’t and they are entitled to their own opinion, however misguided they are.

In the end, you should have a full plate of homemade love potion that will keep your hearts and stomachs full. There are definitely worse ways to spend $20 trying to impress someone. Some people think that some dead flowers are the key, and though this pasta will last even shorter, it will surely be forever remembered in the one place that matters on a date: the stomach.