Pasta sauce from jars

I had to cook tonight, but I didn't really feel like it. I had wanted to do some kind of fun experiments this weekend until I got to the weekend, and my energy and motivation just immediately evaporated. As such, I decided it was time to make a lazy dinner.

I'm a fan of pasta puttanesca and would have loved to have made that, but I didn't have all of the ingredients, so I just made something vaguely similar and pretended like it was a good idea. I scooped out a few black, green, and kalamata olives, plus a handful of capers, a couple cloves of garlic, a tomato, and a can of sardines. I figured that would work.

I skinned and diced the tomato, minced up the olives and capers together, minced the garlic cloves, and chopped up the sardines. Quick and easy, just like I had hoped.

Once I had my pasta boiling, I started off my sauce by sautéing the sardines and garlic in olive oil. The sardines were pre-cooked, so I didn't have to let that run for too long. I just wanted to sweat the garlic a little and get the flavors blended before I added in everything else. I dumped the tomato in, mixed it all together, and let it sit for a little while until most of the liquid had evaporated from the pan.

Next up, I dumped in the olives and capers and did the same as I did with the tomato: mix and wait until the liquid was about gone. Since the green and kalamata olives and capers were brined, I didn't add much seasoning at all, just a bit of black pepper.

Once the pasta was finished, I poured a bit of the pasta water into my sauce and mixed that in to turn my crusty paste into something a bit more mixable. I drained the pasta, then tossed it into the pan. Voila.

From start to finish, this took about 20 minutes. I used my vegetable peeler to shave a slice of Romano cheese on top, and it was off to the races. Not quite as bold of a flavor as puttanesca, but I felt like it captured the basic concept while still offering something unique. Definitely worth trying again, but I'll probably double the garlic.

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