In an effort to find more economical dishes, I made pasta e fagioli. I don’t like the soupy kind because I can’t take soup to work as lunch. I made it like a regular dish. And finally I managed to make it right.
Turns out the secret is to add a lot of garlic. I was peeling garlic and got distracted, so there ended up being a lot of it. I didn’t want to waste it, so I went ahead and added all of it to the sofrito. And the dish became completely amazing.
The problem with amazing dishes, though, is that they evaporate fast. I’ll have to cook again today because there’s very little left.
What are your favorite economical dishes?
Clarissa's Blog 
fast day: in a hurry: 1c rice, 1c red lentils, rinse in a strainer, dump into instapot, with 2-3c water, 1 can coconut milk, 1T tandoori masala mix, big pinch of salt, chopped onion. Cook on the rice setting. I cheat and serve with sour cream or yogurt on top.
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Chickpeas (after having soaked), onions, some chile pepper, some garlic, celery with leaves, red bell pepper or whatever kind of pepper (all vegetables chopped), salt, pepper, bay leaf, orange and or lemon peel: all together in the oven for 3 hours. To be served with fresh cilantro and yogourt on top. And rice.
Sharing this now because this is what I am cooking today.
Ol.
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The guy who has known me for more years than I care to mention says onions. Unbelievable. :-))))
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“says onions”
Do you have any idea about the source of your alliumphobia? Did you ever address it in therapy? It seems so random…..
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I have the same thing going with Bell peppers. I love them raw but not cooked. It’s the texture. The mushy, soft, nasty texture.
I learned to cook solely to be able to guarantee that not a single bit of cooked onion sneaks into my food.
Alliumphobia should be garlic, though, no? I love garlic.
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This whole discussion of cooked onion is making me seriously nauseous. If I barf on my keyboard, all of you are to blame.
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Skip them! I will be delicious. Add cauliflower instead. HAHA
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Very funny.
I know, this is a conspiracy to put me off food for a week.
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it* will
I did not mean to put you off, dear friend. It is complicated for me to share my economical dishes with you because they all have the o-word in them.
Ol.
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“favorite economical dishes”
Not pretty to look at but nice and simple and filling.
Boil about 100g per person of tagliatelle (or similar pasta) in heavily salted water.
In a pot or deep frying pan heat a little olive oil with salt and pepper on medium heat. When the pasta has about two minutes left start frying 2 eggs per person. When the pasta is done take it from the water with a large flat straining spoon and cover the eggs without stirring. When all the pasta is in the pot add about 1/8 cup pasta water per person and then stir vigorously for 10 to 20 seconds.
I sometimes add white cheese before frying the eggs too.
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[Writing from Italy}
Oh gosh, where do I start?
First of all, there are at least twenty (probably more) recognised variations on Pasta e Fagioli, and the most popular ones are NOT the soggy, soupy, brothy ones that I so often see as the common version, as the original version was a pasta asciutta dish (dry pasta) that could easily be carried to the fields for consumption after a hard day’s work.
Generally speaking, all pasta and pulses combinations are tasty, nutritious and ideal for low budgets as they were peasants’ staples: pasta e ceci (chickpeas), risi e bisi (rice and peas), similar to other pasta dishes like cacio e pepe (cheese and black pepper) or ajo e ojo (garlic and chili in olive oil).
The great thing about these dishes is that they can be used as a foundation on which to build endless variations, by adding fresh vegetables (pasta e fagioli is yummy with freshly sliced white onions or shallots on top), if you are vegan, eggs if you are vegetarian, or bacon or lard if you are a carnivore. Kosher versions also exist.
However, the secret of Italian cuisine is the exquisite balance of flavours, none of which is overwhelmed by any other nor concealed by heavy sauces. So Clarissa, careful with the garlic!
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Pasta and beans is a very unusual combination for me but I feel an overwhelming need for pasta recently. I don’t know why, I usually don’t like it that much. But for good pasta around here, you have to make it yourself. American restaurants are unfamiliar with the concept of al dente and grievously overcook it. Klara loves pasta but I can’t order for her at a restaurant because she doesn’t recognize the restaurant version as pasta. She says it’s mushy.
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The best pasta is always freshly homemade pasta. When I eat pasta in restaurants in Italy I never have it unless it’s the fresh, handmade variety. I trust that you know how to make pasta and since you are such an organised busy bee I’m sure it won’t take you long. My grandparents used to make it early in the morning, before going to work: they left it to dry under a wet cloth and they would cook it in time for lunch around 1 pm. Enjoy!
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“best pasta is always freshly homemade pasta”
One of the best pasta dishes I ever had was while visiting a friend’s family in a village in Poland (in the świętokrzyski area). Freshly made noodles and then dressed with a simple sauce made of butter and sweet cream simmered together for about 20 minutes, not super simple cause you have to keep stirring to keep it from burning, but sooooo good).
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I don’t do dough. Dough doesn’t like me. I don’t even do varenyky (Poles call them pierogi) because of this.
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This post is making me hungry, and I don’t even like pasta
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I apologize. :-)))
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I don’t like pasta too much, but at university I used to buy super tasty pasta resembling what one sees on google images of “Fettuccine alfredo.” ( It wasn’t that specific dish; only that kind of pasta looked similar.) One could choose to add cheese, mushroom sauce, cherry tomatoes, dill.
If Klara likes pasta, have you tried adding cheese or meat to meat? Like Makarony po-flotski ?
Btw, how are you with rice? It’s my favorite “basic ingredient” (forgot a word for it in all languages, I mean rice / potatoes / pasta are … ?)
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Klara is at the stage where you can’t mix anything on a plate. Everything has to be separate. So suggesting adding tomato sauce (which she loved at 2) is greeted with outrage. They are so cute when they are outraged.
I very rarely do rice but I make a lot of risottos. Mushroom risotto, seafood risotto. Of course, the seafood had to be abandoned because of the prices.
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““basic ingredient”
The word you want is ‘staple’. My favorite staples are pasta, corn, potatoes/rice (tie) in that order.
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Thanks, cliff. I suppose, corn being a staple is a particularly American thing.
In Ukraine or in Israel it isn’t so, except for cornflakes in recent decades.
In my mind, corn is something one adds as an aside to rice with meat, to soup, to salads. We do boil corn on the cob when it’s season since my mother likes it.
In Israel I discovered sweet sorts of corn which are eaten w/o salt after boiling, though I still sometimes add salt even to them out of habit.
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We eat a lot of buckwheat. I love buckwheat although it’s become hard after I started avoiding products from Russia. I’m also really into beans. But only the real ones. I don’t do canned beans.
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“corn being a staple is a particularly American thing”
Not unknown in Europe. In parts of Italy and especially in Romania pollenta (mamaliga in Romanian) is something of a staple.
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Clarissa, want to share with you one onion you’ll probably like. One of her best poems imo:
The Onion by WISŁAWA Szymborska
The onion, now that’s something else.
Its innards don’t exist.
Nothing but pure onionhood
fills this devout onionist.
Oniony on the inside,
onionesque it appears.
It follows its own daimonion
without our human tears.
Our skin is just a coverup
for the land where none dare go,
an internal inferno,
the anathema of anatomy.
In an onion there’s only onion
from its top to its toe,
onionymous monomania,
unanimous omninudity.
At peace, of a peace,
internally at rest.
Inside it, there’s a smaller one
of undiminished worth.
The second holds a third one
the third contains a fourth.
A centripetal fugue.
Polyphony compressed.
Nature’s rotundest tummy
its greatest success story,
the onion drapes itself in its
own aureoles of glory.
We hold veins, nerves, and fat,
secretions’ secret sections.
Not for us such idiotic
onionoid perfections.
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I like them raw. Any kind of onion, raw. But the cooked variety, brrrr.
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“But the cooked variety”
I thought caramelized onions (sauteed in sunflower oil) were a seasoning in Ukraine. I love them but the smell… lingers in the kitchen.
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Disgusting garbage. My mother caramelizes for N when she visits and I always leave the house.
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I remember you saying you like Indian food. There’s a lot of cooked onions in those sauces!
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“you like Indian food”
shhhhhhhhh (everyone looks awkwardly at the floor)
read the room.
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OK, this is just simply cruel.
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I agree 100%. I add onion to almost all my ‘linners’ but it is always added last so it remains raw.
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Polenta and cheese, with an egg cracked on top. Food of my ancestors.
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Sauteed kale or broccoli rabe or any green (collards are always cheap), rice, and eggs. Takes twenty minutes (mostly hands off waiting for rice to cook) and is cheap.
spaghetti aglio oglio also very cheap and very adaptable with whatever veggies you have wilting in your fridge. Slice lots of garlic really thin and toast quickly in high quality olive oil, add crushed red pepper if you’d like, add whatever veggies will cook in the time of the spaghetti or none at all, add a ladle or two of pasta water while the pasta cooks and veg boil. Combine pasta al dente. Add toasted breadcrumbs on top if you want to be real fancy. My daughter devours this. Also takes about twenty minutes or less, depending on what veggies your are adding and slicing.
Lentil soup is very hearty, cheap, delicious, especially this time of year. I like to add a good slug of vinegar after it’s cooked for a nice bite. Or split pea soup is another favorite.
I love cooking but I’ve become rather reliant on convenience foods the last year as three kids and dinner time/running around to school events and activities really stretches my patience/ability to cook how I like.
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