Perspective

 I used to drive a 1986 pickup truck that was a heap of trouble on wheels. Mind you, I learned to drive in 2002. That piece of shit loved to just, you know, die. In the middle of intersections. While turning onto side streets. While accelerating from a stop sign. While braking for a stop sign. While cranking. It just died whenever it felt like it. It had AM radio and hand crank windows. That's literally it. No FM, no AC or heat. There were seatbelts for 2 of the 3 seats. I fucking hated that truck.

On the other hand, it was my truck. I drove it to church, to work, and to the library; that was as far as I was allowed to take it, and I took it all of those places. I remember the first time I got it to idle while parked. I remember singing "The Prayer" over its dying engine multiple times. I think my younger brother probably has some flashbacks of some of those moments. But, as old, beaten up, shitty, annoying, and objectively terrible as it was, it sure was nice to have it when you had to get somewhere. It didn't cost much to own, it wasn't anything flashy, but, with a little TLC, it would get you there. More or less.

Now, I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but the economy fucking sucks. At least, that's what people tell me it means when a goddamn Big Mac costs eight fucking dollars in Memphis. Eight. Dollars. This is madness. On the other hand, know what a can of vegetables costs in Memphis? $1. That's right: 8 cans of veggies for the price of a Big Mac. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: canned foods are loaded with salt (*cough*Big Mac*cough*), they don't taste as good as fresh, they've probably got microplastics and cancer and diphtheria and whooping cough in them or whatever. They're also fucking affordable, fucking vegetables, and fucking versatile, so calm your tits and listen up.

First step: rinse that shit. Just some cool water for maybe 30-45 seconds. You're not trying to cleanse the soul of your carrots; you're just trying to knock some of that extra salt off. It's okay if you don't, but it's just a scooch better if you do. For this particular meal, I rinsed all 3 cans of veggies and the can of chicken. Oh, and, by the way, scrub and rinse the lid of your can before you cut it open and press that metal down into your food. That shit's disgusting.

So I took my canned carrots and smashed them all up with a fork. That's one of the cool things about canned vegetables: they're pretty much good to go, no pre-boiling or whatever that you don't want to do.

Next, I mixed quite a bit of flour into the smashed carrots to make pasta dough. I started with about 2/3c of flour, but probably ended up with close to 3 or 4 cups by the end of it. I severely underestimated how much carrot and moisture I was dealing with. A little extra virgin olive oil and black pepper got mixed in, too, but the flour and carrots are the important parts. 

I did a terrible job of cutting the dough into noodles. I was all like "I'm gonna do this by hand" and immediately regretted it as I ended up with all sorts of confusing shapes and sizes.

My other ingredients were pretty easy to deal with, too. I dumped the tomatoes and chicken into a pot with heated olive oil, then ducked away as boiling oil spit all over the goddamn kitchen. Once that chaos settled down, I dumped in a big-ass spoonful of jarred garlic (*gasp!*)...

So let's take a minute. I know I've said it a million times, and so have plenty of people with, like, credentials and shit: fresh is better for veggies, for garlic, for whatever. People like to make fun of "jarlic," and I get it. But, for one second, let's take our heads out of our asses and acknowledge that sometimes garlic from a jar is all we can fucking do, so, please, kindly get the fuck all the way off our backs and let us enjoy a moment of garlicky decency in our lives, you pretentious peckerheads. And I'm including myself in there. Let people enjoy shit. It's not hurting you. It may be helping them. Rant over. Maybe.

So I dumped in my jarred minced garlic and let that shit cook for a little bit before adding a splash of apple cider vinegar.

I should note that I squeezed a fuckton of water from the spinach, but there was still plenty of moisture left, which was fine. Dumping it in and adding a good bit of black pepper got the sauce in a serviceable spot, so I left that on low heat and cooked my pasta.

See? It's orange because carrots. That's...that's what it's made of, and I cooked it like normal pasta noodles despite the Cronenbergian designs.

After that, I just dumped the noodles into the sauce pot, poured in a bit of the noodle water, and let it simmer while occasionally stirring until the sauce thickened up. Not the most appetizing thing in the world, is it? Probably doesn't even have AM radio.

However, it tasted kind of decent. It was filling. With a dollop of honey mixed in, it tasted even better. Did I mention that we used about $4 of ingredients on this? That the whole process took about 30 minutes? That you can make the dough and cut the noodles ahead of time and refrigerate them for a few days before cooking them? That the pot with half the noodles and all of the sauce contains about 4-5 servings of dinner as well as about 10 servings of vegetables? It tastes good enough, it's filling, and it's affordable, all without sacrificing on some workable nutrition.

Buckle up, kiddos. We're cooking canned veggies for a while.