More Pasta - Creamy!

My last post was about making tomato pasta sauce bases more exciting on the cheap. This one is creamy instead.

You can use different types of creams, thickened or pure or sour cream all work well, as do low fat versions.

Different things work better with tomato based sauces than creamy ones. There is hardly any work to be done for creamy sauces. The same principle as before applies. Get a pot of water on to boil for the pasta, and get everything else happening while that is boiling.

You can put pretty much anything in a creamy sauce, but I generally like strong tasting things with cream, as the cream will damp the strength a bit down a little bit.

So, while you pasta is boiling, chop up whatever you want to use in your sauce (again, get whatever is cheapest)and start cooking it in butter or oil. When you are ready to serve it, drain the pasta, and stir enough cream in to draw all your other ingredients together.

Good ingredients for creamy sauces include:

Mushrooms
Chicken
Bacon
Onion
Garlic
Sundried Tomato
Chargrilled Eggplant
Chargrilled Zucchini
Roasted Capsicum
Chilli
Parsley

Remember again, cut your ingredients small so they cook quickly, and you can have dinner ready is 15 minutes!

A super easy creamy sauce can be made by cooking off a tablespoon or two of pesto, then mixing through cream to make it a sauce consistency.

PASTA!

Pasta is one of my favourite things to cook. It is so cheap and easy, and you can do pretty much anything you want to it!
Last night I made a really tasty sauce. Its so easy to make these kind of things up - just get the cheapest veges on special, Home brand pasta sauce- if you look up or down at Woolies or Coles you will find these under the Dolmio and other expensive brands for sometimes a quarter of the price. Essentially the same product! Same goes for pasta - at the moment, home brand pasta (Smart buy at Coles) costs 70c for a bag! So you can realistically cook a meal for 4 or 5 people (or more) for $5, in about 15 minutes!

The pasta sauces like Dolmio etc are usually a basic Napoli sauce - that is tomato, onion, garlic, and herbs.

First thing you need to do is put some water on to boil for the pasta. While that is happening, get your veges going - you can use anything you like, bear in mind that the smaller you cut things, the quicker they will cook. Heat up some oil in another pan, and add your veges of choice hardest to softest. Once they have been going for a couple of minutes, add the softer veges, and then your pasta sauce. Let that cook away until your pasta is ready. Drain the pasta and put the pasta in with the sauce, mix it and serve!

Good veges to add to tomato pasta sauce:

Capsicum
Eggplant
Zucchini
Onion
Garlic
Carrot
Squash
Pumpkin
Spinach
Silverbeet
Mushrooms (cook in a little oil or butter first)
Sweet Potato
Asparagus
Broccoli
Corn Kernels


I also like to add legumes, like tinned chickpeas, 5 bean mix. You can get these for about $1 a tin at Woolies and Coles.