Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Cooking from a pantry, mostly

Spaghetti and tomato sauce. It doesn't get much more basic. Doctored up with some things that were laying around, this was pretty satisfying.

While the pasta was cooking I caramelized some shallots in olive oil, to which I added minced garlic and a diced hot pepper (chili pepper flakes would have been a fine substitute). I also added some roasted red peppers from a jar to the saute. Once the garlic was soft but not browned I added a can of tomatoes in their juice, quickly squishing the tomatoes with my hands. I kept the pan over high heat, added salt and pepper and some dried herbs, and reduced the tomato sauce until it was pretty thick (I also added some pasta water to the sauce while it was cooking down.). The sauce got to a good thickness in about 10 min., just about right for the pasta to be cooked.

When the pasta and sauce were ready I cooked them together for a minute and served. Could have added some parmesan, but it wasn't needed. I also thought about adding some jarred olives and capers--maybe next time. Very serviceable for a weekday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love cooking from the pantry. Nine times out of ten, when I need to make something for dinner, I pull out a can of tomatoes and some pasta and then rummage to see what I can add so that DBF (aka the Canadian) doesn't notice that we're eating the same thing every day.

The CFT said...

I'm with you. Don't know about fooling the Canadian though, they can be pretty sharp with their two languages and all.