And Yet, Another Easy Pasta...

I don't normally cook during weekdays and today is exceptionally cold so I came back home... hungry and still cold. So, I need food, good food, and fast! It's logical, yeah? LOL Minimal washing is a must and must be cook less than 10 min. If you happen to see the cute, small, and colorful bell peppers, do try them out because they're crunchy and sweet! Honestly, I don't really fancy bacon because it turns tough when it's cold and sometimes it's way to salty to my liking. But bacon works very well to bring out the sweetness of the peppers.

What you need for 2 people:

1 pack small bell peppers (usually they mix the color, mine just happen to have lots of orange)

8 strips of bacon, sliced into strips

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

dried chili

your choice of pasta about 150-200gr (I use full wheat spaghetti)

How to:

1. Heat up the pan and add on the most fatty part of the bacon strips and stir fry it until the your pan coated with the fats (yeah! good stuff!). Then add on dried chili and garlic, add on little bit of oil if you feel the bacon fats is not enough. Cook until the garlic is golden brown.

2. Add on the bell peppers. Stir fry until half cooked then add the rest of the bacon and close the lid for about 3 minutes.

3. Take out the lid and add on the pasta. The pasta should absorb most of the liquid leftover when you take out the liquid almost immediately. So by the time you're done, which should be very fast, you have a pasta that's not too dry but also not too wet, just nice!

Hold on:

Q: what about the seasoning?

A: why do I need salt if the bacon already take care of that part? And the friend, pepper is already optional because dried chili already takes care of its job. :)

Note: 50gr of dried pasta yield to 100gr of cooked pasta... interesting? hehehe...

Enjoy!

Tuna Pasta

Remember all the leftover veggies that you bought intended for the Minestrone soup? Well, this is one of the idea of how to finish them off... tuna pasta!

I use sambal belibis, despite it has MSG in it (sobs sobs, my fave chili sauce has MSG in it), but I can't help it, I like my tuna pasta hot and sweet...

What you need:
1 Zucchini - halved and sliced
1 sweet corn - cut
Leftover celery stalks - sliced
1 canned tuna - strained
1 handful pine nuts
3 pinches dried chili
tomato sauce, sambal belibis (opt. your fave chili sauce with garlic based, or can omit this), white wine
Your fave pasta (I like fusilli)

How to:
1. On a wok, saute pine nuts and dried chili until fragrant
2. Add on tuna. Stir until tuna is dry (I like dried tuna)
3. Add on all cut veggies
4. Splash a bit of white wine and close the lid until veggies are cooked (mainly the zucchini)
5. Add on tomato sauce and sambal belibis
For 1 person portion:
1. Boil 50 gr of dried pasta until al dente, then strain
2. On a wok, take the tuna sauce as much as you like, stir fry it until a bit dry then add on the pasta. Mix it until the pasta is well covered with sauce.

Tips:
1. If you don't like spicy food, you can omit the chili sauce but at the beginning, add on chopped garlic, saute it together with the pine nuts and dried chili
2. Other than sambal belibis, can also use sambal jempol. I detest sambal ABC so won't recommend it.

Enjoy!

A Different Shirasu pasta

Well, this is just another version of shirasu pasta, but definitely different from the previous recipe, and you can serve this with rice as well. Initally I made this to be eaten with rice, not pasta, but according to my logic, anything cooked with tomatoes will go well with pasta, and so far I haven't been proven wrong...

Yield: 2-3 person


What you need:
1/2 pack cherry tomatoes, halved
1 pack bunashimeji mushroom
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
250 gr fresh silver fish (that's why this is different from the previous recipe)

1/5 stalk leek, julienned (optional, this is just to give you the green color)

1 pinch dried chili

Seasoning: salt, pepper, tomato sauce

Pasta of choices: fusilli or spaghetti

How to:

1. On a wok, heat up the oil with dried chili (it'll give you a nice fragrant, not necessarily spicy)

2. Saute garlic until fragrant and add on tomatoes and bunashimeji

3. Once they are half-cooked, add on the fish and leek

4. After all are cooked well, add in seasoning, and taste

5. After you get the taste that you like, add on the already boiled pasta and toast around until it's well mixed

Tips:

1. You can change the mushrooms to enoki, eringi, nameko or white mushrooms, but I don't think I will use shitake, or oyster mushrooms because they give different feels

2. I like to use cherry tomatoes because they're not so watery compared to the big ones, and off course cherry tomatoes look prettier on your plate because they'll still retain their shapes after they're cooked too ;)

3. Fresh silver fish is cheaper compared to the Japanese shirasu, talk about 9SGD for small pack compare to 4SGD to the huge pack. But I'd think this will depend on where you live as well.

4. I like to use lots of garlic because it'll cover up the fishy and mushroomy smell. Don't get me wrong, I like mushroom but sometimes the smell can change the overall food's atmosphere (what am I talking... just imagine this, you have enoki in the pasta but it smells that you keep thinking of miso soup while you're eating the pasta, weird right?)

5. Do try wheat pasta, I like them better than the regular pasta because they're more chewy and have more body when cooked with tomato based sauce. And when you're at it, also try the organic ones, they're much lighter compare to the non-organic ones ;).

Below is what it looked like if you use spaghetti, I didn't use mushroom at the below version but nevertheless, the idea is the same.

Enjoy!

Shirasu Pasta

Another result of watching too much variety shows, here is Shirasu pasta. This is a very simple pasta with simple taste, and a no brainer to do. I find it quite foolproof, so very small chances of screwing up this dish.

*for 1 person

Ingredients:

100 gr pasta - boiled until al dente - put in 2 pinch of salt in the water (the part that Aiba-chan forgot to do in his :p)

1/2 red chili - sliced thinly and seeds removed

3 cloves garlic - chopped coarsely

35 gr shirasu

2 tbsp olive oil for stir fry

How to:

1. in the frying pan, add in oil, garlic and chili and saute until fragrant (don't let the garlic burned)

2. add in Shirasu, stir fry for about 1 minute

3. add in pasta, stir the pasta until the shirasu is well mixed

Tips:

1. add sunny side up egg, it'll taste better (there's no egg in the pic because I had too much eggs lately :()

2. if your budget is accommodating, add more Shirasu, the the more the merrier

3. Shirasu by itself is already salty, so don't add too much salt when you cook the pasta. I roughly only add about 2 small pinch of salt and it tastes just nice, not overwhelmingly salty

Another Simple Pasta...

Sick of your salsa but you still got half tuppleware of it? Well, fret not, you can always recycle it into a tomato based pasta sauce and with the extra kick of it too. I add on smoked yellow pepper to get a stronger flavor of my sauce. And for the meat, this time I add on sliced marinated pork loin.

*Yield: about 4 servings
Ingredients:
Your favorite pasta for 4 servings - this time I use fusilli
The sauce:
5 tomatoes - sliced
10 cloves garlic - roughly chopped
Your leftover salsa
1 yellow pepper - (this will require courage for those who are try it for the first time) burn it on the stove until all skin turn black thoroughly, toss the burned pepper to a bowl and cover w/ cling film tightly for 10 minutes. After that, under running water, peel of the skin until no more charred skin on the pepper and throw away the stalk and the seeds, and sliced. The cool term for this routine is filming.
Seasoning:
Tomato sauce / Ketchup 
Red Wine / Cooking Wine
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive oil
Marinated pork:
250gr pork loin - sliced, poked generously w/ fork. Poking will tenderize the meat, much more organic than meat tenderizer.
3 tbsp honey
1 lemon - squeezed
Olive oil
Lemon pepper

How to:
1. On a bowl, add in honey, lemon, olive oil and pepper, stir up till well blended. Add in the pork and mix well until all slices are covered, set aside into the fridge for about 1/2 hour. Don't go over more than 1.5 hours because the marinate has lemon in it, unless you like a super sour meat.
2. On pasta pot, boil the pasta with 2 pinch of salt and splash of olive oil to give taste and prevent pasta from sticking together. Once pasta is al dante, pour the pasta on the strainer and set aside.
3. On a hot pan, add on olive oil, and once hot, add in garlic and saute until fragrant and golden brown.
4. Add in tomatoes, pepper and the salsa together (don't add in the salsa water though), cook until skins are separated. Lastly add in tomato sauce.
5. Once the sauce bubbling, add on wine and vinegar. If sauce too thick, add on more wine to thin it.
6. On separate pan (non stick pan), cook the pork piece by piece, each side by 1 minute and set aside.
7. Back to the sauce, toss in the pasta until well blended, and serve, add the pork on top.

Side Notes:
1. If you notice, you'll have to wash 3 different pans at the end of the day. Sorry, this is inevitable unless you want to get your pork in the sauce together, but it won't be nice.
2. The marinated pork can be a separate dish by itself. How? Don't throw away the marinate, cook it into a sauce and thicken it by corn flour and you have a pork dish that can be served w/ rice or mashed potatoes in company of your fave boiled veggies.

Simple Elbow Pasta

A simple pasta recipe, just as long as you have tomatoes and garlic. For this time, I have some leftover patties that I haven't managed to eat, so I use these for my pasta. However, you can definitely use this for any other type of meat, or even fish.

*Yield: about 4 servings
Ingredients:
Your favorite pasta for 4 servings - this time I use elbow pasta
4 tomatoes - sliced
10 cloves garlic - roughly chopped
4 meat patties or sausages (those from the sausage/ham counter, NOT the packed ones) - sliced
Seasoning:
Tomato sauce / Ketchup - I'm a Heinz fan because it's more tasty compare to other brand, be generous for this recipe (at least 8 tbsp), it won't fail you. Alternatively, you can use tomato paste, but it's always easier to use tomato sauce, plus it's already available in your kitchen
Basil - be generous too unless your sausage has lots of herbs in it already, basil is healthy so the more the merrier
Red Wine / Cooking Wine
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive oil

How to:
1. On pasta pot, boil the pasta with 2 pinch of salt and splash of olive oil to give taste and prevent pasta from sticking together. Once pasta is al dante, pour the pasta on the strainer and set aside.
2. On a hot pan, add on olive oil, and once hot, add in garlic and saute until fragrant and golden brown.
3. Add in sausages (if it's still raw), if not, add in tomatoes first, cook until skins are separated, then add on patties. Lastly add in tomato sauce.
4. Once the sauce bubbling, add on wine and vinegar. If sauce too thick, add on more wine to thin it.
5. Toss in the pasta until well blended, and serve, add pouched egg on top.

How to do the pouched egg, then? Easy.
1. Boil water on a small pan, add on 2 tbsp of vinegar.
2. Once the water bubbling, crack 1 egg in, the white will start to cook and vinegar will make it float. Use strainer to shape the egg, and once all white is cooked, take it out and start the next one.