Tuesday Meal - Pasta and Peas

After my homemade bread debacle, I changed directions and decided to make Pasta with Peas tonight instead of spaghetti. 

Pasta and Peas is entirely inspired by this precious 90+ year-old lady who has step-by-step videos on YouTube.  She shares all different sorts of meals she ate as a child during the great depression.

You can watch her make this meal here.  Isn't she just the cutest?! 

I pretty much just followed her instructions with a few small changes.

My ingredients:

 Clara doesn't specify all the ingredients on her video so here's what I did - it worked pretty well:

• 2 small potatoes (peeled and diced)...or you can use one large one
• 1 onion (peeled and diced)
• 1 Tbs Olive Oil
• 1 can of peas (I used 2 cups of frozen peas instead...worked great)
• 2 cups pasta (Clara calls for 1, but I didn't think it seemed like enough)
• 8 tsp of tomato sauce

First you need to dice the onion and potatoes...I saw this trick once for how to quickly dice an onion (i.e. less room for tears!)

Cut the onion in half vertically (where the stem is)

Next, cut slits almost to the end, but no all the way (so it all stays in one piece).  Last, cut the other direction and you get nice little cubes!  Works like a charm every time = )

With the olive oil, saute the onion and potatoes until they are tender and golden

Then add the peas

My pan had gotten pretty brown at the bottom, but when I added the peas, their juice pulled all that up and added some great flavor!

Once the peas are cooked, add just enough water to the pan so that the pasta can cook...This is tricky, because you don't want too little (so that the pasta won't cook), but you also don't want too much (because you won't be draining the water!).  I thought I was adding too little, but it worked out alright

Now is a good time to add S&P.  Then bring the water to a rolling boil and add the noodles

I love this - Clara suggests turning off the burner right after adding the noodles to the boiling water.  The noodles will cook just fine in the hot water as long as the lid is secured on top.  Good way to save gas!

Last step is to add a bit more S&P and a little tomato sauce.  It was pretty bland without it, so I definitely recommend it!  I think she puts 2 or 3 spoonfuls of sauce in hers, but I added about 8!

Here's the final product = )

Not bad for a really cheap meal!  It actually tasted really good.  I might add in ground beef or ground turkey next time if it's in the budget.

I'll definitely use this recipe again!