Pasta! Pasta!

The first year I was living in Louisiana ALL I cooked was pasta. Granted it was my first time not living at home AND not having access to my college dinner hall. I loved pasta so I would cook pasta ALL THE TIME. I would literally boil the noodles on Sunday and heat up bottled sauce. The I would eat leftovers Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. (Of course then I would change it up for my Frozen Thursday.)

After a while I did start getting creative and adding whatever I had in the apartment into the jarred pasta sauce, which is normally Classico brand sauce. Which normally comprises of adding capers and olives. Here's a look at my recent creation using Fire Roasted Tomato & Garlic Sauce.


I love Pasta
After about a year of eating this way I started to get tired of only making pasta, and pretty much started cooking it all together. I do occasionally make pasta still, but don't want to eat the same thing ALL week long, which posses a problem. What to do with the leftovers?

Now that I'm living with the boy, the leftover noodles aren't a problem itself. The problem really is the leftover sauce since the boy doesn't eat most tomato based sauces (he'll normally have his with pesto or Alfredo). So I've come up with creative ways to use up the sauce.

The first is really just an egg fried on top of tomato sauce. I do still add the capers and olives, and normally a little graded parmesan cheese as its frying. As simple as it seems I actually found this in a cookbook. It was published by the magazine Real Simple in a section called "No-Shop Meals." It's a great cookbook with sections on "No-Cook Meals" and "Shortcut" meals among others.


You can't tell, but this egg actually had a double yolk!
A few months after first making this dish I went to Israel. Turns out they have something similar that is pretty mainstream. They call it Shakshouka there, and while they normally use actual tomatoes instead of tomato sauce it winds up being almost the same.


Shakshouka in Jaffa, Israel
Of course the other option I have to change up leftovers a bit is also from the same Real Simple cookbook, in the same "no-shop meals" section. They called this one "Crisped Leftover Pasta," which is really just fried pasta. Of course its fried along with the sauce (and if you're me capers and olives). And actually is what I'm planning on making for dinner tonight!

So I'm curious what creative solutions you have to use up your leftovers? Do you have any good "No-Shop Meals"?

~Shoshanah

P.S. I'm thinking it will be Kris or Danny going home on AI tonight. I'm hoping its Danny over Kris, but I guess we'll have to wait and see!

P.P.P. Daily Goods is giving away a bunch of Indian spice mixes!