A Conversation for Ten Minute Meals

Quick Pasta Sauces

Post 1

Mr Prophet (General Purpose Genre Guru)

This is something I found by chance. I had some ingredients, I bunged them together, it worked. Allelujah. Quantities are largely dependent on taste, appetite and - especially with the garlic - whether you have a date.

1. Boil some water and add fresh pasta. You can use dried pasta, but it isn't quite as nice and besides usually takes 10-14 minutes to cook. Alternatively you could use egg noodles, which take 4 minutes.

2. Fry some choped or crushed garlic in a very small amount of olive oil in a saucepan.

3. Put a scoop of marscapone (the soft cheese of a million uses) into the pan with the garlic and stir until it it all melted. Add herbs as preferred; I recommend either a dried Italian herb mix or fresh basil if you have it. Also pepper and a little salt to taste.

4. Drain the pasta, stir in the sauce and serve.

As an alternative, marscapone can also jazz up a regular tomato sauce.

1. Do the pasta.

2. Fry some chopped onion and chopped or crushed garlic in a saucepan, in a little olive oil.

3. Add some tinned tomatoes (about a tin will make enough sauce for two-to-four people, depending on appetite), a squirt of tomato puree, salt, pepper and herbs (again, and Italian mix or fresh Basil).

4. Stir in a scoop of marscapone, making sure that it melts and blends into the sauce completely, so that you don't end up with blobs of soft cheese in the sauce.

5. Drain the pasta, serve, pour the sauce on top. Add some grated parmesdan if desired.

You could also add tuna to the tomato sauce instead of the marscapone, or if you were really letting yourself go, cream. Minced beef could be added at stage 4 to make a perfectly acceptable bolognese, although if making bolognese or a tuna-tomato sauce you may as well use regular vegetable or sunflower oil, as the distinctive taste of the olive oil is somewhat swamped by the other strong flavours and adds very little.

If you leave the marscapone, cream, tuna and beef out, this same recipe makes an excellent plain tomato sauce.

The Prophet


Quick Pasta Sauces

Post 2

Is mise Duncan

Even quicker.
A tin of Batchelors condensed soup and half as much water as they recommend. Thick creamy and tasty smiley - winkeye


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