Why I was thinking about Half Homemade tonight

[commodorified]

So I needed a really fast, everyone-is-tired-and-starving kind of supper tonight.

I made pasta with sauce, or, more accurately, Classico and I made pasta with sauce.

There are a lot of things I buy intending to adulterate them extensively before serving. Pasta sauce is a big one.

Making red sauce from scratch is possibly worth it if you have a huge tomato patch or a bushel from the market, or if you're an absolute wizard at Italian spicing, or if your honour is involved, but I suspect most people start a step or two along (and when they DO make sauce from scratch, make some to freeze and adulterate later).

Sometimes I start with plain tinned diced tomatoes.
More often, I start with spiced tinned diced tomatoes.
Mostly, I start with a jar of pasta sauce.

Tonight I started with a bottle of Classico Vodka and I:

1) Browned 2 mild Italian sausages and a chicken breast in a deepish frying pan,

2) Dumped the sauce over them,

3) Added 2 Tablespoons of diced dehydrated garlic, a heaping Tablespoon of Mexican oregano, sniffed it a bit, added a good pinch of adobo pepper and a good pinch of chipotle, tasted it, and added a good pinch of black pepper,

4) Added in about a cup of frozen chopped spinach,

5) Let it simmer while the noodles cooked, and served it with grated parmesan on top, garlic bread (split baguette, buttered and with more dehydrated garlic sprinkled on, then 15 minutes in a 350 F oven) on the side, and chopped tomato and cucumber salad heavily sprinkled with Penzey's Mural of Flavour.

It took about 30 minutes all in, and was good.

Comments

[zingerella]

My veggie version of this is as follows.

Chop some onion (1/2 to 1 depending on number of hungry people), and sauté in some olive oil until clear.
Add 1 or 2 cloves minced garlic.
Chop 1 or 2 Tofurky Spicy Italian fake sausages, and brown in the pan with the onions.
Add a handful or two of sliced mushrooms (button are fine, cremini or portobello will give you a slightly different, but still yummy sauce), and some flaked red pepper.
Add any of the following: Some chopped red pepper (you can roast it first, if you want), some chopped sun-dried tomatoes, some canned or cooked chickpeas, some chopped fresh basil, anything else you think tastes good in pasta sauce (I can see adding black olives, for example, except that I hate olives. so I don't).
If you're using crushed tomatoes, you may wish, at this point, to add some oregano, or Italian seasoning.
Cover with your preferred sauce/crushed tomato solution and serve over pasta with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.