Dinner - One Pot Pasta

Well, I was originally going to post this once I'd finished dinner earlier, but then the boyfriend and I decided we would go get fireworks. See, in New Zealand fireworks can only be sold from the 2nd-5th of November, and the boyfriend LOVES making sparkler bombs. The problem is, everyone else loves sparklers as well, so we have to go early to get the sparklers. So at 8pm off we went to the "big red shed". We got sparklers. I got two boxes which have about 40 or something sparklers in them, and I also got a box of fireworks.


Anyway, the impromptu fireworks-mission meant that I couldn't post my dinner recipe, so I will post it now (at 1:45am on a Wednesday morning). You may wonder why I'm awake at this time. You may not be wondering that. You may not even know I exist, in which case, that is very sad and you're missing out.


The recipe: One Pot Pasta. Adapted from here. I love the Food in a Minute site. It is fantastic. This recipe also makes quite a large amount; it made so much tonight that we're having the leftovers for dinner tomorrow (Thursday) night. Wednesday night is curry night here, where I attempt to make some curry using whichever curry paste is in the cupboard.


One Pot Pasta, Lara-style


Ingredients:

• 1 onion, chopped however you like your onions chopped
• 500g beef mince (but I imagine other mince would work too.)
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 420g can of pasta sauce (I used a Wattie's Chunky pasta sauce which I think was garlic and herb? I don't remember, sorry, and the tin is in the recycling bin now. In any case, almost all tomato-based pasta sauces should work.)
• 1 1/2 cans of water (the original recipe says you can use beef stock or red wine, but I didn't bother.)
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into relatively small pieces (this is so that they cook faster. I think you could probably get away with not peeling them, as long as they were washed and had any nasty bits chopped off - this may increase the nutritional value of the meal slightly. This ingredient was not in the original recipe; I wanted more vegetables in mine, plus our potatoes needed to be used.)
• 2 cups of pasta (I used penne and the recipe originally said small pasta spirals. I think if you are using a bigger pasta shape, add another half a cup? I felt like it should've had more pasta in each serving.)
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• 1 cup of frozen peas/corn/carrot mix (again, original recipe just asked for frozen mixed vegetables, so it's pretty much up to you what you put in it.)
• salt and pepper, to season
• chopped parsley

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a big pot, and brown the mince and chopped onion. Be sure to break up the mince as it cooks, so you end up with small bits of mince.
2. Add the minced garlic, pasta sauce, water/stock/wine, potatoes and the pasta and stir. Heat until it comes to the boil, then lower the heat and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the mince and pasta are tender, stirring every few minutes to avoid the food sticking at the bottom of the pot.
3. Stir in the vegetables, and simmer for 3-5 minutes, until the vegetables are hot. You may need to add a small amount of hot water here, depending on the water level - I put in as much so that it was nearly covering the food in the pot.
4. Add some salt and pepper, and stir it in.
5. Put in a small handful of chopped parsely, and stir before serving. You may need to add extra salt.

Hooray! Food! Not as cheap as the Golden Indian Pilaf recipe, but still relatively inexpensive - and yum.

So, that was the second of my adapted recipes. It's 2:08am now and I'm pretty tired, so I won't write much more. Why does doing stuff have to take so long?

That reminds me, I need to study. I have only one exam for uni for the end of the year (the other courses were all assessed during the semester) so I should probably do some studying for it tomorrow... Human development, bleh.

Anyway, no one is reading this, so I will say GOODNIGHT LARA because I'm the only one who saw that.

If you aren't me and are reading this: congratulations, you have reached the end of another post by me. Fantastic work! Good night.

L.