Quick Pasta

There are times when I crave for something savory, something fast, and something that does not include a lot of prep work.  Well, this pasta dish is far from being the perfect solution - it calls for leftovers in the fridge.  I usually have a pot of pasta sauce, ready for tossing into noodles when the line-up for dinner is not in keeping with my food preferences.

Tuna cooked in tomato sauce is a favorite.  But after the third reincarnation, it does tend to get a tad bit old.

For this version, I freshened it up a bit with cherry tomatoes and lots of basil.

Heat up olive oil in a pan, drop the cherry tomatoes to soften them, and squash them to release the juice.  Better yet, cut them into two - pressing on them might release a shot of wayward hot tomato sauce.  Add leftover sauce, and a handful of chopped fresh basil.  In the absence of leftover sauce, a packet of Del Monte spaghetti sauce will do in a pinch - the flavors are already balanced and does not need much tweaking.  I also added a generous splash of white wine.

It helps if you have basil ready for harvesting in the garden.  The parent plant has self-sown already, and these are the second generation plants.  

Again, I always have a container of cooked spaghetti noodles - I make sure there are plenty of leftovers, separate from the sauce, so I can make the exact dish that I want for that day, be it plain pesto, Aglio y Olio, or red sauce.

Drop the noodles, cover to heat it all up and blend the flavors - and serve.  Definitely does not taste like leftovers.

*** Note:  No pasta?  no problem.   This is just as good served over hot rice.