Basic tomato sauce for pasta
Suitable for vegans, easy recipe. For 2 people use a medium can of tomatoes for 4 people use a great big tin.
1 Heat 2 tablespoonfuls of oil (the best you can afford) in a pan and add a chopped onion. Stir occasionally so the onion browns but doesn't burn.
2 Add a stick of celery, very finely chopped. Cook for 5 minutes.
3 Add a can of tomatoes. If they are not already chopped break up the flesh with your wooden spoon.
4 Add salt, pepper and a teaspoonful (or as much as you like) mixed herbs or herbs de Provence.
5 Lid on, turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or longer. A long, slow cooking time will help develop a good flavour.
6 You can serve the sauce just as it is or you can whizz it with a stick blender.
Serve with pasta and grated cheese on top. You can also use it in lasagne or as a pizza topping.
Pasta
You need a big pan so the water can really boil. When you add the pasta it will bubble right up and if the pan is too small it will put out the gas! I have done this many many times so pay heed. Some folk add a little oil to stop it boiling up.
How much pasta you cook depends very much on the size of everyone's appetite but it roughly doubles in size as it cooks. If you find you have cooked too much see the later recipes.
Basically you half fill a big pan with water and a tiny pinch of salt. When it comes to a real, rolling boil then you add the pasta (take care not to get splashed). Lid on, heat down, simmer 7 minutes and then check if it's cooked enough. When it is ready, drain well (don't scald yourself) and serve immediately, preferably on hot plates with the sauce of your choice.
Easy bolognaise sauce
1 In a medium pan heat 2 tablespoonfuls of oil.
2 Add 3/4lb minced beef (the best quality you can afford) and let it brown. Turn the meat from time to time but don't stand and stir it or all the juices will run out instead of being sealed in.
3 Cover the meat with boiling water. Add a good handful of dried oregano, salt, pepper and a full tube of tomato puree. Stir gently to mix it all up.
4 Lid on, heat down and simmer for at least half an hour.
Serve with pasta or use in lasagne.
Variations
To cut down red meat consumption and to cut costs add soya mince protein at stage 3. I add 2 good handfuls to the pan and more water. Soya swells so check you have added sufficient liquid. Cook the sauce for longer so the flavours mingle properly.
Lasagne
You need 3 sauces and lasagne sheets.
Tomato sauce see above
Bolognaise sauce see above
White sauce
1 In a small saucepan melt 2 ounces of butter or margarine. Don't let it go brown if you can help it.
2 Turn down the heat and stir in 2 tablespoonfuls of flour.
3 Add milk, stirring all the time (this is the time to use a balloon whisk) until the sauce thickens to a thick cream.
Take it off the heat and stir a bit more to make sure it is smooth.
Layer up your lasagne
In your lasagne dish (it doesn't need to be a special dish, anything fairly shallow and rectangular or square is fine) put a little white sauce.
Add a layer of lasagne sheets.
Put in a layer of tomato, a layer of lasagne, a layer of bolognaise sauce, a layer of lasagne until the dish is nearly full, finishing with lasagne.
Add some grated cheese to the white sauce and pour over the top of the lasagne in the dish. Add a layer of grated cheese.
Cook in the over at reg 4, 180C for 30 minutes to 45 minutes. When it's hot through and bubbly, and the cheese is melted and going brown then it's cooked.
Variations
Use just bolognaise sauce with white sauce at the bottom and cheese sauce on the top.
For vegetarians lose the bolognaise sauce. Use layers of tomato sauce and white/cheese sauce. (You may need to make extra white/cheese sauce.)
For vegans, make the white sauce using soya margarine and soya milk. Use it as white sauce at the bottom of the dish. Put layers of tomato sauce and lasagne into the dish. Keep a little sauce on one side and add dried mixed herbs/herbs de Provence to the rest of the white sauce and use it as a layer instead of bolognaise. Use the reserved white sauce on top, no cheese.
Left over pasta
If you have a microwave:
1 heat through, add grated cheese and serve with ketchup. Cheap, quick and tasty.
2 pasta and whatever sauce is left will heat up well. Jazz up with pasta oil.
Spicy Pasta oil
In a suitable bottle (ie not too big) put
a dried red chilli
a sprig of rosemary
a sprig of thyme
a few peppercorns (black, pink, red or green)
Top up with olive oil or grapeseed oil.
Shake well and leave for 6 weeks before drizzling onto pizzas and pasta.
3 Carbonara
In a large microwavable bowl put half a pack of lardons and heat for 20 seconds.
Add the cooked pasta and a knob of butter. Heat for 30 seconds.
Beat an egg and add to the pasta together with grated cheese. Mix with 2 forks then heat for 30 seconds.
Keep turning the pasta through the sauce and heating for 20 -30 seconds until the egg is cooked (it looks like scrambled egg). Serve on hot plates with ketchup or spicy pasta oil.
Variations
If you like it creamier then add cream to the egg and cook until the egg is creamy but not dry.
1 You can bake pasta in left-over tomato or bolognaise sauce in the oven, mark 4, 180c. It takes about 20 minutes to heat through.
2 Make carbonara in a pan on the top of the stove, stirring a lot so it doesn't stick and burn.
3 Make cheese sauce and pour over cooked pasta. Add grated cheese on top and bake 30 minutes mark 4 180c until bubbling and the cheese is brown. Good with macaroni.
Make pasta salad.
1 Look at the left over pasta. If it's in big pieces you might want to cut them into smaller bits for the salad.
2 Add cooked, cold, vegetables such as diced courgette
sweet corn
peas
diced beetroot 3 Add diced, raw vegetables such as carrot
tomato
celery
spring onion
radish
peppers
4 Mix with a salad dressing, whichever you prefer.
Vinagrette
In a jar (with a tight lid!) put:
2 tablespoons oil.....olive oil preferably or any salad oil
1 tablespoon vinegar, wine vinegar if possible
1/4 level teaspoonful of dry mustard (you can use ready mixed but it sticks round the top of the jar)
1/4 level teaspoonful salt
1/4 level teaspoonful sugar
Shake really hard until it's all mixed properly.
It will keep in the fridge for several days. Just shake really well before using.
Variations
add crumbled blue cheeseadd a little lazy/easy garlic or a crushed garlic clove
add a couple of teaspoonfuls of chopped fresh chives
add a teaspoonful of Worcester or soya or chilli sauce or lazy/easy chillis
The variations are endless and depend on what you like.
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