Blah blah blah, just skip to the recipe
I once had a mother-in-law who spoke in the pearly tones of an
aristocrat and was fond of saying, when asked if she liked to cook, “I don’t
like to cook, I like to eat ... well.”
I am much the same way. I have no particular fondness for
cooking, and would live on Trader Joe’s frozen meals if I could afford to, but
I like to eat well, and cheaply, and achieve this with a minimum of effort. And
over the years I have learned how to do just that.
If I’m hungry, I want to eat within the next 20 minutes – I
refuse to use recipes that ask me to prepare something the day before and let
it sit overnight. My dishes vary depending on what ingredients happen to be in
the apartment. I rarely measure things, instead putting in what seems like the
right amount, just because I’m too lazy to wash measuring cups.
Over the years I have, through a mix of googling and
experimentation, come up with a bunch of what I would have to call, because
“recipes” is too strong a word, recipestimates. And the purpose of this site is
to share these with those who just want a very simple idea of how to make
something good and quick.
Now, we all have different ideas of easy. I knew a woman whose
idea of making pasta was to boil and drain spaghetti then pour a can of cold
tomato sauce on top. I don’t do that. And for all my laziness, I grate my own
cheese because the powdered stuff is crappy. So you can be even lazier than I
am, and if you are, feel free to change my recipestimate to suit your
slothfulness. It’s your mouth; you decide what you want in it.
I’m going to start with exactly the sort of recipe I like;
one that seems fancy and yet is brain-dead easy. I found a recipe for Fettucini Alfredo on the
Internet long ago, and was thrilled to discover that something so gourmetish
was so insanely easy. It is also a good example of my use-what-you-want rule; I
rarely make Fettucini Alfredo with fettucini because I consider it a
troublesome pasta.
I use the same sauce and methods for both Fettucini Alfredo
and Pasta Primavera, so I’ll tell you how to do either here.
Time: 15-20 minutes.
Ingredients:
Pasta (while fettuccini
is traditional, it’s also a pain, since it tends to stick to itself if you
don’t stir constantly. I generally use some sort of corkscrew pasta like rotini
or rotelle, although if I want something fettuccini-ish I’ll use linguini,
which is less bothersome. Frozen tortellini or ravioli are also good in a cream
sauce.)
Butter
Heavy Cream
Grating Cheese (parmesan
or romano are good, although I generally use asiago because it’s the cheapest
grating cheese at Trader Joe’s).
Black Pepper
(optional)
If you want Pasta
Primavera you’ll also need:
Vegetables
(vegetables I like with a cream sauce include mushrooms, zucchini, and
carrots).
Intructions:
Boil water in a
pot. Throw in enough pasta for however many people you’re
cooking for (I’m pretty good at eyeballing it; keep in mind that some pastas
expand and some don’t). Cook it for however long the instructions tell you to.
While the pasta is boiling, get a sauce pan and melt some butter in it. You’ll want
enough butter to coat however much pasta you’re making (my guess is I use
around a tablespoon per serving). Once the butter is melted turn off the heat
so it doesn’t burn.
If you are making Pasta
Primavera you can cook your veggies
while boiling the pasta. I have a steamer, so I usually just steam them, but
feel free to sauté them in oil or butter. Keep in mind that some veggies cook
faster than others, so put in carrots and mushrooms earlier than zucchini or
eggplant).
When the pasta is cooked (I usually pull out one piece and
take a bite to see if it is), drain it.
Thec pour the drained pasta into the pan with the butter and stir it around to coat the pasta.
Pour a little heavy
cream in (I’ll guess about as much cream as butter). Keep in mind that the more cream and butter
you use, the more cheese you’ll need to put in to keep your sauce from getting
soupy. Stir it up.
Mix some grated
cheese into the pasta. You want to put in enough to create something the
consistency of a cream sauce, although if it’s too thin or thick it won’t kill
you; as long as it tastes good. Put some cheese in, taste it, if it doesn’t
taste cheesy enough, put some more in.
If you made vegetables, toss them in. Put on black pepper if
that’s your thing (black pepper is actually supposed to be good for you, so if
it’s not your thing, try it out anyway).
If it doesn’t come out quite the way you like, next time try
more butter, or less butter, or more cream, or whatever.
