Lazy Pasta

Sorry for the random long break in posts. I had been traveling a lot, and subsequently not making my own food. Part of my travels included moving back up to my Toronto apartment. While it's exciting to be back, it does mean I have to say goodbye to my parent's lovely kitchen (with it's marble countertops and it's commercial size range and it's extensive, always stocked pantry).

So, since I've just recently moved in, I'm don't really feel up for cooking anything to intensive, so I'm going to tell you my favorite lazy (and cheap) dish. It's something I can easily whip up in less than a half hour, and can feed a lot of people.

This recipe uses a combination of veggies that looked good at the supermarket today, but you can (as usual), use whatever you want. I often use bell peppers, eggplant, asparagus, olives, etc.

Oh, and of course, I forgot to take pictures because I'm a fool. I promise I'll start making more legitimate posts soon.

Veggie Pasta

Makes 3-4 servings

1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1 zucchini
4 crimini mushrooms
1/2 pound pasta
1/2 jar tomato sauce (or if you're feeling adventurous, you can make your own. I'll give some guidelines on pasta sauce recipe further down)


Boil ~5 cups water in a large pot. Add a large pinch of salt to the water.

Dice onions, mince the garlic, and chop the zucchini and mushrooms.

Saute the onions in a large skillet until translucent. Then add the minced garlic.

Once the salted water is boiling, add the pasta, and cook for the recommended time (or until it's your favorite texture)

To the sauteed onions and garlic, add the zucchini and mushrooms. Cook until veggies are your desired doneness (I really don't cook the veggies down that much, because I love fresh/crunchy veggies). Add the tomato sauce, and heat through.

When the pasta is done to your liking, strain out the water.

Serve the pasta and the veggie sauce, and if you want, you can top it with some cheese.


Quick Tomato Sauce

This recipe will probably make more sauce than you need for the pasta recipe above, but whatever is left over you can just put in the fridge and use later. And then you'll have delicious home-made sauce and you won't even have to worry about it.

1 16 ounce can of tomatoes (diced or crushed, depending on how chunky you like your sauce. Or if you really like chunky, you could get canned whole ones and mush them up for a bit in the can)
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic minced
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil (or fresh, if you have it)
1/2 tsp red peppers flakes

Saute the onion and garlic in some olive oil in a saucepan.

Add the canned tomatoes, and bring to a simmer. Add the herbs and spices.

Here is where the recipe gets fun. You can make whatever kind of sauce you like. Do you want cheese in your sauce? Add some grated parmesan or romano. Want to make an artichoke sauce? Take a can of artichoke hearts and throw it in. If you happen to have prosciutto, you could totally add it in, and it would be delicious. Basically, now it the time to add whatever makes you think "Mmmm, that tomato sauce looks fantastic".

And you can specialize the spices as well. Do you think that rosemary would be really good in pasta sauce? Go for it! Do you like spicy tomato sauce. Add more pepper flakes, or some chili powder. If you hate spicy food, leave it out, no worries.

However, if you're feeling pretty lazy, you can just stick with tomatoes and herbs. And the one herb that I recommend not leaving out is oregano. That's what makes people think stuff tastes like Italian food (in my experience), and also it's just delicious.


So hopefully this post/recipe will remind you that cooking doesn't really need to be hard and intimidating. It can be really easy to make yourself a good meal with minimal effort when all you really want to be doing is sitting on the couch avoiding unpacking all your stuff.