Unusual, simple but delicious pasta sauces

yowza.

my son virtually lives on pasta w/ EV olive oil, salt & pepper but it's always seemed a bit austere to me. Smells nice, though.

Isn't this just carbonara sauce without the eggs and cream?

Pasta with lots of pesto, and cheese, also good; but hardly unusual.

One thing I rather liked back when I was a lazy student: store-bought generic tomato-based pasta sauce, with added curry powder and cheese. Yum.

Melted chocolate sounds good - there aren't enough sweet pasta sauces if you ask me. Does anyone know of recipes for pasta-based milk puddings, like rice pudding or tapioca?

1. ketchup
2. chopped up bacon
3. cheddar cheese

i just did this again over christmas and my god I couldn't believe how good it was.

I've never tried this and take no responsibility for your screwed up dinner.

bacon
chorizo
3 mushrooms (NB not 3 types of mushrooms, just 3 mushrooms)
capers
olives (if they haven't gone off)
maybe some drippy camenbert
suppose i'd better get an onion on the way home as well...

400 gr. (16 oz) linguine pasta

2 cuttlefish weighing about 300 gr. (12 oz) each

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

a dash of white wine

200 gr. (8 oz) tomato puree

water

2 dl. (6 fl oz) olive oil

salt and pepper

salted ricotta cheese (optional)

Clean the cuttlefish, remove the small black ink sacks putting them into a bowl. Squash the sacks, and diluite with a little water. Cut the cuttlefish into strips and sauté in a saucepan with garlic and oil. When brown, add a dash of wine, the tomato puree and the ink. Add more water, correct the salt, add pepper and then cook for about 15 minutes over a moderate heat. Boil the pasta in plenty of salted water. When cooked "al dente", drain and mix with the sauce over the heat for a few more minutes. Serve hot.

It should be hot.

Diced garlic, WHITE onion, diced carots and diced celery, capers, any kind of good olives you want to use, anchovies, chopped-up hot peppers (to taste). Fry in a little olive oil til the onion is translucent. Add some chopped-up browned Italian sausage, and then a little dry red wine. Let the wine burn off, then a little hot milk on top of the meat. Wait about a minute, then add yer tomatoes. Transfer to a big pot, add a little hot beef stock or dissolved buillion, more tomato sauce and a dash of black pepper...simmer for a couple hours...good stuff.

I have noticed that you've stopped selling industrial-sized jars of capers. Now I must pay recalculus amounts at the local grocer to keep a safe supply in the pantry. R U GAY?

Thanks!!

Yep, they taste a bit different, mainly because caperberries have a lot of small seeds inside, and capers don't.

capers on left, caperberries on right.

Toss thru spaghetti til strands are coated in garlicky crumb mix. Sounds like it'd be dry and odd but no! It is yum.

Also I like to do tuna with garlic and a ton of lemon juice and ground pepper.

I think I just about got this one where I want it: artichoke-walnut sauce

Crush and toast some walnuts

Drain a can of artichoke hearts into a mixing bowl.

Mince some garlic and chop the artichoke hearts, then salt and cook them over some olive oil in a small sauce pan.

Add much olive oil to the artichoke water. To that, add cracked pepper and chopped herbs (I've been using sage, coriander, oregano, and thyme).

Add the walnuts, mixture, and a few bay leaves to the artichokes, simmer, splash a bit of milk, and grate a ton of Parmesan. Let it reduce a bit.

I find it best over angel hair.

Tell me about yours.

Not a pasta but a pasta salad that has stood me in good stead:

Cooked and cooled short pasta (spirals or penne, say). Add to that some halved cherry tomatoes (or semidried ones), a can of tuna finely flaked, some corn kernels, chopped roasted capsicum, and some baby spinach. Toss that thru the pasta and then add a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and LOTS of pepper; shaken and then tossed thru the pasta salad.

Delish. Guess you could also add chopped olives or artichoke as well if you wanted but I'm not sure that'd go so well with the tuna (or leave the tuna out for vege handiness)

Penne a la vodka. Don't have the recipe to hand, but will hunt it down. Heaven in a sauce.

eating vodka sauce over veg meatballs right now

artichoke-walnut sauce looks good, will attempt.

it can be too acidic if not balanced. took a few attempts to finally get it right.

i think separating the artichokes from artichokes water to cook the chokes a bit first helped.

throw in some bacon

it's topical: I just did it tonight

OK, it's not unusual
but it's simple and delicious!

Underrated: very finely shredded lemon and/or orange zest in bolognaise.

Very italian! Tis the done thing on osso bucco too.