Fun with Spaghetti!

[angel_negra]

One of my favourite lunches to make up is spaghetti. It's tasty, versatile and most importantly, easy. Generally, I'll top it simply with grated parmesan cheese or shredded cheese and it keeps pretty well as is.

Now, if you want a bit more to that, some of the basic toppings - along with the cheese - I've liked are: canned pasta sauce, salsa (I go for the hottest one, personally), or even some mayo.

Meaty pasta sauces work nice, including chili. I've also used a vegetarian sauce that I rather liked. It's an approximate recipe though, so feel free to add or remove to your preference.

- Half of a container of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
- 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped into chunks
- Roughly 5 mushrooms, chopped into chunks
- a small palmful of oregano, ground up between my hands
- about a 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt and pepper
- several dollops of BBQ sauce

With the frying pan on medium heat, I put the tomatoes in first so they'd be really soft and liquidy. Then tossed in the salt and pepper mix. Tossed in the mushrooms and oregano next. Then the bell pepper. The BBQ sauce was a last minute addition.

Mixed and let simmer while I got the water going for the pasta and then, upon finding the pasta container very empty, letting it simmer while I dug out the extra bag of spaghetti. I'd say it was about 15 minutes altogether, while I got the pasta cooking and snagged my book to make the time pass. Basically, let the mushrooms mostly brown, the bell pepper soften and the tomatoes to mostly liquidate. Then I set the sauce on low and covered it with a lid, so it kept the steam in and it stayed moist.

I had about 5 servings with this recipe and it kept rather nicely in the fridge when I packaged the servings into tupperware. I was using parmesan cheese as the topper, the kind you get from a can, which tends to handle life in the fridge better than grated cheese. Packaging it in tupperware while the pasta is still hot seems to work best for me, the steam keeps the noodles from drying out too much.

Comments

[zvi]

Sorry if this seems too basic, but are you just microwaving with a smidge of water to reheat or how are you getting it hot again? (Has always been dubious of reheated pasta, but would love to learn better.)

[angel_negra]

Nah, that doesn't seem too basic, I have a bad habit of forgetting that others can't read my mind when I'm typing things out. I tend to toss the whole tupperware container into the microwave without taking the lid off. I package the pasta while still hot and steamy, so the condensed steam is enough moisture to keep the pasta from drying out in the fridge. I don't reheat it longer than a minute or two, just enough to melt the cheese a bit and bring the steam back. (This does tend to make the lid pop off while the microwave is going, which amuses me in a little kid way, but might startle you if you're not expecting it.) If you're reheating on a plate, covering the pasta with a bowl or a microwave cover is also a good method - though with no fun pops - as it also keeps the steam in and won't dry anything out.

[zvi]

Thanks!