I’ve been cooking at home a LOT more these days, and I’d like to expand my noodle/pasta repertoire. So… let’s approach this as a creative game with just a few rules:
**Must be noodle or pasta based **- could be any sort of that thing. I tend to elbows and ramen noodles a lot because I can get them cheap but for variety things like rotini and spaghetti are totally cool.
**No tomato in any form. ** I am allergic to tomatoes. Just touching them can give me a rash like poison ivy. One of my frustrations is in looking for noodle and pasta ideas they all seem to have tomato in them! (OK, not all, but a LOT!) No, no tomato, no tomato paste, no ketchup, nothing at all from tomatoes, thank you very much.
Vegetarian options welcomed! - as long as there’s no tomato. We do eat meat in our household, but we love our vegees, too. I currently have a stock of garbanzo beans. I have standard vegees like carrots and bell peppers. I have a garden that is currently producing spinach, kale, lettuce, and bok choy, still have a few radishes.
The simpler the better. We’re poor. I can’t afford to get 12 ingredients per meal. Well, maybe I could if they were the right ingredients, but I need to keep my food budget buying food rather than a lot of spices and sauces and cooking wines and stuff. If you can tell me how to make a sauce cheaply, though, I will be very appreciative. Simple is good, though.
Heat a bunch of olive oil (enough to eventually coat all your pasta) and saute 3-4 cloves of chopped garlic until lightly toasted- not burnt. Add red pepper flakes. Toss with pasta and sprinkle romano/parm cheese. Uses pantry staples and is very quick.
Well if you are willing to consider next day dishes. One of my favorite things, and it happens to be great at clearing out the little nubs of this and that from the fridge is a Spaghetti Fritatta. Particularly a Mexican one.
Basically just pour day old pasta into a bowl. Put in one to 1.5 eggs per serving. Dice up onions, garlic,chilies, peppers, andoullie or chorizo, a few cubes of cheese, whatever you have around or feel like. A bit of salt and pepper and stir up well.
Melt a bit of butter in a fry pan, dump the stuff in and fry till crispy edged and halfway done. Flip, finish and serve like a pie slice with sour cream. It is a bit of a pain to flip if your pan is bigger that 12’’ or so though, so sometimes I just bake it if it’s a big’un
Don’t forget pesto! Pesto sauce is incredibly easy to make and worlds better than anything from a jar. (Basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan, mixed with a hand mixer and salted to taste. Usually done before the pasta is finished.)
My kids are horrified by tomatoes, so pasta without tomato sauce is a standard offering in our house. If I don’t have the ingredients for pesto on hand, I’ll either make pasta with just Parmesan for the kids, or toss the hot pasta with olive oil and Parmesan. For myself, I’ll add black pepper and maybe a touch of spicy oil.
Carbonara is another favorite, and also totally easy to make. For the kids, I leave out the usual onions and beat together eggs, milk, diced ham, salt, and a handful of cheese, then put that mixture in a large pan, stir it a few times, add the hot pasta while the mixture is still liquid, and stir it all until the sauce is mostly cooked. Add grated Parmesan and yum!
a pound of sweet Italian sausage, removed from casing and sauteed
large onion, sauteed
pound of frozen spinach, thawed and drained (you don’t have to get every single drop out)
pound or so of mushrooms, cut into very large chunks and sauteed
two jars of alfredo sauce
The sausage functions mostly for flavoring, so it would be expendable.
What about cold pasta? It’s summer, so pasta salad makes a refreshing and easy dinner. I usually use leftovers and whatever I have in my pantry- diced chicken, black olives, garbanzo beans, asparagus, onions, dried cranberries, various cheeses (yum, feta!), and usually a vinaigrette dressing of some sort.
This artichoke and asparagus pasta salad is something I threw together one night from a bunch of leftovers, and I submitted it to allrecipes.com. Glad to see it’s gotten 4 stars, I wasn’t sure of any of the quantities, and looking back at it, I am such a weirdo for putting Worchestershire sauce in a pasta salad, but I remember it being very good!
Actually, I wouldn’t mind everything BUT Italian-style dishes. Not that Italian is bad, but some of my mainstays are from there and, like I said, I’m looking for variety. I’m getting a little tired of alfredo.
Cook a box of pasta–penne, rigatoni, etc.–collander it, return it to the pot, and then mix in a bag of spinach, some almond slivers, lime juice and goat cheese. Separately, cook a couple different meats–cut-up chicken breast, sliced bratwursts, tailless shrimp, etc.–with some red pepper. Drain a little, mix it all together, and then throw it in a casserole dish and in the oven for 1/2-or so. Mmmmm.
Butter & sage is a pretty standard pasta sauce.
Walnut & olive oil & garlic with some chopped or torn parsley (a common late night after-drinking snack one of my Italian friends makes)
It doesn’t really get much simpler than that. For non-vegetarian options, in addition to the suggestions above, there’s also spaghetti alla gricia, which is basically a tomato-less version of (a)matriciana. Given its simplicity, quality of ingredients is essential. The recipe calls for guanciale (cured pork cheek), but if you can’t find any, a quality pancetta will do. Serve with an imported pecorino romano (not parmesan).
Awesome! Do you have soy sauce, ginger, and garlic at hand? The easiest most delicious thing I can come up with off the top of my head would be to quarter baby bok choy, or chop up mature bok choy, stir fry it with the ginger and garlic, and then toss with it boiled noodles, soy sauce, and a little bit of sesame oil, with chillies if that’s your sort of thing.
I will return to this thread with more ideas at a later point- I need to go check the chicken I’m cooking now.
