Pasta Confidential: the way to make a pasta sauce not from scratch...

Working full time does not afford me the luxury of making all my meals from scratch - and let's face it, a lot of meals in general.  Also, I am not very good at cooking for one person and especially when I cook stir-frys or pasta or things like that, it's a struggle to make only enough for one. 

So I have created a delicious, nutritious (?), quick and easy way to make pasta after work - and it tastes fantastic! When  I make pasta,  I make a lot which I can then heat up later or freeze for future meals.  Here is a look at my creation:

Step 1: I start cutting up my ingredients, putting the water for pasta on to boil about halfway through my chopping. I usually have a lot of different kinds of veggies already cut in the freezer - like peppers, brocoli and spinach for this recipe.

I chopped onions and garlic to brown the chicken with. I cut one large chicken breast. I throw all that in together to brown while I continue cutting up the rest of my veggies. 

For this recipe, I included the following veggies: mushrooms, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, broccoli and spinach.

I like to have all my cutting down and put into bowls which makes it easier to just add them in when I need to while cooking.

Step 2: I let the chicken brown in olive oil with the onions and garlic adding some Italian seasoning. Covering to cook. 

I love this seasoning because it has all the things I want like oregano, basil, garlic etc without having to use a bunch of different spice containers.

Step 3: About halfway through the cooking, I add the veggies that need a bit more time to cook like the broccoli and cover to cook.

The chicken should look like this when you add the crispier veggies like broccoli.

Step 4: I add the rest of the veggies, stirring and then covering to let them all cook and mix. I usually add some more Italian seasoning.

Step 5: After the veggies and chicken are well cooked, I can do one of two things: add a canned sauce like the ones below or skip this step. Depending on my mood, I can either.

The veggies and chicken should look like this before adding the sauce.

Today I decided to add the Vodka Sauce jar. It is a really nice cheesey, creamy sauce.

These are two popular sauces I like to use. I used the one on the left for this dish.

Veggies and chicken with sauce.

 

Sometimes at this stage, I will add a dash of wine. Tonight I didn't, but if I was not using a canned sauce at all, I would definitely add a little wine and olive oil to the pasta. Which brings me to...

Step 6: After draining the pasta, I add it all to the pan with the veggies, chicken and sauce. I stir it all together and let it sit and cook for a little bit.

TIP: I have been told by an Italian friend never to rinse the pasta because it makes it more difficult for the sauce to stick to the pasta.  

Then voila: lovely, yummy meal...

It takes about 20-30 minutes from start to finish (you can add a few minutes in there for browning the chicken and cleaning up) 

TIP: I hate cleaning up a seriously messy kitchen. My mum always told me that I should clean while cooking and I have definitely adopted that style. While the meat is browning or the veggies are cooking, or whatever, I do dishes.

So that's that...

What do you think of my quick pasta making?

xxx

Here is Holly my chaton watching me cook away. This is our usual routine. She watches while I do all the work!