Friday Freebie - Pasta Sauces

As has been mentioned in this blog numerous times, over the last few months I have been living the "freelance" lifestyle... aka... broke. So my old carefree way of popping to the corner shop on a daily basis to buy dinner had to be curbed. I'm now much more conscious of every Euro which passes through my fingers and therefore more conscious of making the things that I already have go that extra mile.

We all know pasta is a super cheap and simple way to fill your belly, but what happens when you don't have much of any sauce at home to jazz up that bowl of carbs? I've found a little trick to make a little leftover sauce go a lot further without sacrificing taste.

Creating a "creamy" sauce from bits of other leftover sauces is super easy, and can sometimes be more tasty than the original. I usually start with heating up a bit of olive oil and crushed garlic and throwing in the base of your sauce, whether is a bit of leftover tomato sauce, a tablespoon or two of pesto, some passata or some crushed/steamed tomatoes. Add the base and heat it up a bit and then slowly add some milk and dashes of flour stirring constantly. Don't add too much at a time otherwise the flour will clump up. You don't need to use fatty cream, skim milk will do the job, the more flour you add, the thicker the consistency of the sauce. The important part is to add seasoning, some garlic salt (or just pain salt) some nice cracked black pepper, basil, oregano or whatever savory herbs you've got in the house. You could also add cheese if you like, but I find that sometimes that makes it a bit clumpy & curdled.

I also like adding extra veggies if you've got them; such as cooked peppers or a big handful of spinach - fresh spinach will melt down really small into the sauce - or you can use frozen spinach which has already shrunk. The important part is to taste your sauce the entire time to make sure you've got the flavors you're looking for.