Thursday, August 13, 2009

Breakfast Pasta

I'm back and caught up on other things. So I can share some more recipes. (I have a handful 'in stock' now, including some that friends have shared.)

And a super cute picture of my niece!


So Monday night, my brother crashed at my place and I wanted to make sure he had something to eat before I left for work on Tuesday, but I had no leftovers in the fridge or milk (for him to have cereal) since I had cleaned it pretty well last week.


What to make?

Luckily I had frozen half a can of diced tomatoes! (Never put an open can in the fridge or freezer. Always move it to an alternate container. Thank you Janki's mom for reminding all of us awhile ago!) And I still had those cool purple carrots. And some fresh basil from my little plant outside.

So I decided to make some pasta with a quick tomato sauce.

Quick Marinara sauce (some tips from Mario Batali, some cause I'm crazy?)

Ingredients
Shredded carrots (mine were shredded purple carrots - but yours can be normal)
roughly chopped reconstituted Dried Mushrooms (you don't have to put mushrooms, but if you have them why not?)
Can of diced tomatoes
dried oregano
olive oil
salt
honey
freshly ground pepper (I love my pepper mill, GET ONE if you don't have one!)
couple of leaves of fresh basil (only if you have it)
slivers of parmesan (use a vegetable peeler to get nice slivers)
1/3 bag of pasta (I used rigatoni cause that's what I had)


1. Boil Pasta water
2. Put Olive oil in a pot and heat, when the oil is warm add the dried oregano
3. Add carrots and cook for awhile
4. Add mushrooms and cook for awhile
5. Add salt and continue cooking


6. Add tomatoes, more salt, honey and pepper. Adjust the taste to your liking.
7. Cook for a bit till a lot of the water has burned off. Then rip the basil leaves into shreds and add that to the pot.
8. After the pasta has finished cooking and been drained off, add the sauce and pasta together
9. Serve and sprinkle with parmesan slivers.



10. Try really hard to make sure your brother doesn't eat everything, but give up when you realize he hasn't had cheese in over 4 weeks.

(I couldn't eat the finished product at the time, but Ambrish's verdict was that it was really good.)

Total time (and I wasn't trying to speed) 40 mins tops. But that could have been sped up if I wasn't wasting time in the kitchen, or was multitasking or was a little more organized on Tuesday morning.

The fastest marinara sauce I've ever made - Less time that it takes to make Pasta. (Maybe next time we'll feature that)

So my question to the various people reading this. Let me know how you make a quick, minimal shopping marinara sauce. (I want people to use the comments! Please? If I put another picture of my niece tomorrow?)

4 comments:

  1. My Pasta Sauce:

    This is the college students version.
    Ingredients: Italian seasonings (dried oregano, basil), some dried parsley (a pinch will do), a bottle of mixed pepper (can find in any safeway.), crushed tomoto can, and carrots.
    I take some olive oil and then make a vagar of the above. After a few seconds, i throw in mushrooms. If you are in dire need for time, throw in the canned mushrooms after draining them, but i prefer to cut mushrooms and throw in fresh ones. You can throw in precut mushrooms not found in a can. They're in safeway as well. Then after they saute for a few minutes and the seasoning is good and mixed i throw in the crushed tomatoes. After the tomatoes are cooked, you can throw in shredded carrots. (also, right before that, i add a little more dry basil, dry oregano, mixed pepper, dry parsley, and a pinch of dill. If you like a little spice, cayenne pepper can be added as well. It's sort of a mash of what's in the spice cabinet. Add a few drops of honey, and then the carrots. Mix and walaa, you have the college students 10 minutes pasta sauce.

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  2. Mom's special marinara is a bottled sauce that has no onions or garlic.

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  3. WE are thinking about moving to Richmond how large and young is swaminarayn community

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  4. Richmond California? Richmond Virginia? or Richmond in some other state?

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