Pantry Pasta

April 14, 2020 11:17 AM

Bon Appétit features 13 professional chefs cooking Quarantine Pasta at home with the most basic ingredients they have on hand. 29 min. SLYT
posted by growabrain (68 comments total)

Bon Appétit's Cooking At Home series has provided a serious lifeline of delightful content during the quarantine. Yesterday's extra chaotic It's Alive gave me one of the best laughs I've had in weeks.
posted by merriment at 11:27 AM on April 14, 2020 [14 favorites]

I know other people were looking at, say, Gaby's pasta recipe and were like "okay this one might be too basic." Meanwhile I'm looking at it and Molly's really basic recipe and going "finally, culinary goals I can aspire to!"

Bon Appetit is such a treasure.
posted by chrominance at 11:34 AM on April 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

Oh, also, I find it hilarious that BA's home setups are more professional than what we got from SNL At Home. Mics really do make a difference!
posted by chrominance at 11:35 AM on April 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

This is not something I would usually post - I despise these looong how-to videos with their cheerful, mundane chitchat. But for some reason, I couldn't hang up on it. I suspect that many here will find it useful.

TLDR for anybody - like previous me - who will not waste half an hour of their life to watch people cooking pasta:

Use lots of olive oil and garlic, butter & Parmesan, salt & black pepper, then add anything reasonable you have in your cupboard - tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs, lemon, capers, onions, veggies, etc. Start with frying the garlic in olive oil, finish by Sautéing everything with the pasta in the pan.

(Spoken like a true ex-chef)
posted by growabrain at 11:39 AM on April 14, 2020 [16 favorites]

BA's video personalities, on top of being talented and experienced chefs, are very entertaining and engaging. I like cooking anyway, but I think anyone of any level of ability that's interested in making food (or even just watching food get made) could enjoy their videos. Heck, even the "everything on the menu" series where they just go to a restaurant and try a bite of - yes, you guessed it, everything on the menu - is pretty fun when I'm in the right mood.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:48 AM on April 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

growabrain, did you intentionally leave out cooking the pasta?
posted by clew at 11:59 AM on April 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

On a related note, I never had any interest in making risotto until I saw this yesterday.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 12:03 PM on April 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

"Mics really do make a difference!"

I found that with the initial late-night comedy at-home shows as well. Serious youtubers have it all over those guys; but they've had to do their own lighting, sound, and technical production from the get-go.

I think the folks at BA have been closer to the production side of things than SNL/Late Night Comedians have been, so they have a bit of a leg up.
posted by el io at 12:05 PM on April 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

then add anything reasonable you have in your cupboard - tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs, lemon, capers, onions, veggies, etc.

i have 4 kinds of granola, dried apricots, beef jerky, and champagne.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:07 PM on April 14, 2020 [45 favorites]

I vote yes on the dried apricots, nay on the rest.

I might even try soaking the apricots in vinegar before adding them, like with the raisins in this recipe, to see what happens.
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:10 PM on April 14, 2020

honestly the first 3 go together pretty well even before you start drinking the champagne
posted by poffin boffin at 12:12 PM on April 14, 2020 [15 favorites]

Like a bougie pemmican if you add a fat...
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:13 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Main, lots of pasta and some jerky softened in the water; dessert, scant pasta with softened apricots topped with granola (maybe fresh toasted).
posted by clew at 12:22 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

You could reconstitute both the jerky and apricots with the champagne and cook them together in a dutch oven for several hours to make a sort-of bolognese. But some seasoning beyond whatever is on the jerky would do some wonders. Save the granola for dessert.
posted by St. Oops at 12:25 PM on April 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

merrimant, I loved that one, too. Sohla has become one of my favorites in the at home videos, thanks to the very obvious WEED jar in her spice cabinet, her dog Clementine, and now, her giant fake Brad, complete with knife. Brad still holds a special place in my heart, though, particularly for having to deal with his children barking in the next room during the shoot.
posted by damayanti at 12:28 PM on April 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

But oh, yeah. The BA test kitchen is the common-denominator family-You Tube-programming chez Oops. Claire's creations were the initial draw, but the whole crew is great. Chris has really grown on me, but I still have trouble loving Amiel (previously).
posted by St. Oops at 12:31 PM on April 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Like a bougie pemmican if you add a fat...

oh the fat is already in me don't worry
posted by poffin boffin at 12:37 PM on April 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

They sent them each a bunch of production gear when it became clear they were going to be creating content from home, no?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:39 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

We watch these religiously (what else do we have to do other than work and play guitar?). My wife has accused me of having a crush on Sohla, which is rich coming from someone who's secretly obsessed with Christine.

actually Priya is my BA Test Kitchen crush
posted by 1adam12 at 12:40 PM on April 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

Inspired by this video, I did in fact make my own pantry pasta this past weekend! It was weirdly morale-boosting to see the BA chefs making do the same way so many of us are, whether because they're in an unfamiliar kitchen, or because they're improvising out of whatever ingredients they have. My improvisational pantry pasta was orzo + can of cannelini beans + olive oil + butter + garlic + grape tomatoes + seasoning + parm. Also added some tofurkey italian sausage to help make it stretch to more meals and add some protein.
posted by yasaman at 12:48 PM on April 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

yasaman, that sounds amazing and i have all of those in my kitchen. trying later this week!
posted by rogerroger at 12:50 PM on April 14, 2020

I do this kind of thing all the time. Though I usually do it with "buy one good-looking vegetable" as a first step. As in, "buy the vegetable you see at the store that looks good, NOT the vegetable some specific recipe calls for."

Lots of oil in the pan cooking everything. Then add a splash of the starchy pasta water and add the drained pasta, and cook all that together in the pan for a minute or 2. The plentiful hot oil (olive, butter or both) when mixed with starchy water forms an emulsion that coats the pasta in a creamy feel.

I recommend everyone buy a BIG tube of tomato paste and a tube of anchovy paste. The tube container allows you to keep it almost indefinitely. And both are very concentrated flavors that add to almost any savory dish.

Another tip: Browning the tomato paste in the oil you cook the onions and garlic. (cook does this at 7:40 in video) It browns the paste and brings out rich, dark flavors that are very different from fresh tomato flavor. AND DON'T OVER-BROWN THE GARLIC.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:58 PM on April 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

How come all these recipes use parmigiana cheese, or fancier versions? I was surprised the adult mac and cheese didn't use cheddar, only parm. And what about goat's milk cheese, or cream cheese, which I find to be delightful additions to a pasta sauce.
posted by rebent at 1:03 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Parm-style cheese keeps a LONG time. It's dry and hard and if kept in the fridge it almost NEVER goes bad or moldy. Considering these are "pantry" pastas, that's my guess.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:07 PM on April 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

In true commenting fashion I have not watched the video but am here to say that basic pasta in our house is with frozen peas and bacon. You can cook the peas in the pasta water, drain but not totally dry, add olive oil, parmesan, salt and pepper, then chopped bacon.

I don't like red sauce much these days, so this is our go-to.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 1:36 PM on April 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

Do they make the actual pasta first? That's the part I'm missing. (I have all the ingredients to make my mother's lasagne, except the noodles.. and I'm contemplating just making my own damn noodles. I don't have a pasta maker thingy though, just some arm muscle, grim determination, and a rolling pin. Oh, also some sewing rulers (they are 1/8" tall, i think, and might be useful...))
posted by nat at 1:42 PM on April 14, 2020

I think they are assuming that boxed dried pasta is a pantry staple and are not making fresh pasta.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Oh, also, I find it hilarious that BA's home setups are more professional than what we got from SNL At Home. Mics really do make a difference!

Relatedly, from YouTuber Matt Parker: Why are Talk-Show Hosts so Bad at YouTube? A Closer Look

I found Sohla's spice cabinet inspiring and am planning to completely reorganize ours based on categorizations.
posted by Lexica at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

These people have pantries! I'm jealous. But yeah these videos which are more basic cooking are great. Makes me feel like I can doooo this. ... tomorrow.
posted by taterpie at 2:02 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Sohla is absolutely the break out star of these at home videos. She was on the rise before them, with a growing group of admirers calling for her own series. But this has clinched it. It would be a misstep for them not to make her a headliner as soon as they get back into the test kitchen.
posted by Mizu at 2:05 PM on April 14, 2020 [11 favorites]

My pantry pasta recipe is usually a variation on this one. Can I relate my worst pantry pasta experience here? It was in university a couple decades ago... Store brand creamy cucumber salad dressing heated to boiling, store brand lukewarm marble cheese cut into cubes and over cooked tricolor fusilli all made by a hippie friend challenged in all hygiene. Not good.
posted by Ashwagandha at 2:10 PM on April 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Sohla was awesome when she was at SeriousEats, and I was pumped when she popped up in the BA test kitchen.
posted by Carillon at 2:29 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

I suspect that in the After, there's still going to be a strong demand for home* videos from the entire crew. I love the tiny kitchens, the barking kids, everyone's cabinets/fridges full of tape-labeled deli containers, the iffy lighting, the reassurances to spouses that they aren't on camera. I did not think ba videos could get more satisfying than they already were.

*Home and/or massive vacation house Andy has clearly rented with a bunch of friends for the duration.

Sohla really has been coming into her own in the past few months. Her chocolate-tempering intervention in the Chris and Brad Gourmet Makes Andes Mints was masterful and still personable. Christina's got a great narrative style, too.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:31 PM on April 14, 2020 [9 favorites]

This was great, thanks for posting!
posted by carter at 3:57 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

I love the BA crew. Also it's lovely to see videos where Claire is not suffering.

My main reaction to this one: these folks use a load of oil. And salt. And garlic. And butter. Must taste great! But this is why restaurant food is so fatty.
posted by zompist at 4:23 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it seems to be a Thing in cooking videos (not just theirs, by a long shot) to claim "a couple tablespoons of oil" then glug in a quarter of a bottle. I've even seen Jacques Pepin do it again and again.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:34 PM on April 14, 2020

Whenever I watch the BA videos with my mom, she exclaims over how much salt they're using. I tell her it's partly that they're using kosher salt, not table salt, but she remains dubious.
posted by yasaman at 4:58 PM on April 14, 2020

Those were fun! It’s kind of nice to see some chefs’ home kitchens are about as basic as my own. I was also heartened to see one of the chefs cooking on an electric glass-top range. As much as I love, love, love cooking with gas, I’ve been stuck using electric for umpteen eons, and have always felt a bit...”you aren’t a real cook”...about it. Although, I have to say, his dish was kinda rubbish. I’m at a loss as to how he can call a knob of butter tossed in at the end “brown butter.”
posted by Thorzdad at 5:11 PM on April 14, 2020

They sent them each a bunch of production gear when it became clear they were going to be creating content from home, no?

Yup, apparently the original plan was to have a roving video crew (or crews) that could film in people's homes, but as the quarantine evolved rapidly, so too did the plan. They ended up sending a tripod, a lav mic package, and some other stuff to each of the editors. Pretty impressive, especially considering that some of them are sheltering in unexpected places far from home.
posted by chrominance at 5:31 PM on April 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Speaking of professional cooks showing their at-home setups, Kenji Lopez-Alt has been showing his lunchtime and midnight snack rustle-ups via GoPro, often without editing, or only editing out the time it takes for water to boil. it's heartening to see an 8-minute video that indicates that it will take 8 minutes to make a thing. And nice to get a good visual sense of the textures that recipe authors are talking about when they describe the given thickness of a sauce.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:36 PM on April 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm supposed to be eating more fish high in Omega-3 and I like mackerel in every form I've ever had it, so why have I never seen canned mackerel? Between that and my wife's obsession with Melissa Clark's sardine-or-anchovy toast (seen in this tour of her kitchen) I think we're going to end up finding out who does gourmet grocery delivery around here before long just so we can get all the good canned fish. We're down to only two cans of anchovies as it is and I don't know when we're going to get to Costco again. If ever.
posted by fedward at 7:25 PM on April 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Zingermans ships higher end canned fish, btw.
posted by aramaic at 7:43 PM on April 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

I like mackerel in every form I've ever had it, so why have I never seen canned mackerel?

I've gotten tons of canned mackerel from Asian and dollar stores in NYC. And bonus, it's usually cheaper than sardines, tuna or anchovies!
posted by Borborygmus at 8:14 PM on April 14, 2020

Zingerman's is a fantastic place!

And yep... restaurants use lots of oils, fats and salt. "Finishing" dishes with a glob of butter is a standard trick. It works in almost any savory dish. It's an irreplaceable mouth-feel.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:17 PM on April 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

One of the main takeaways from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is that salt is really important for flavor, and if you want your home cooking to taste like the stuff in restaurants, you probably need to add more salt. Like, a lot more.

For cooking pasta, you want to add a metric shitton of salt (that's the official measurement) to the water. Most of that will go down the drain, so don't be too hesitant. Salt that water, majorly. Just be careful not to put too much of it in the sauce.
posted by zardoz at 10:23 PM on April 14, 2020

Bon Appétit's Cooking At Home series has provided a serious lifeline of delightful content during the quarantine. Yesterday's extra chaotic It's Alive gave me one of the best laughs I've had in weeks.
posted by merriment at 11:27 AM on April 14

I love BA's videos, and I love watching Brad - especially with all of the fun captions and sound effects that his Producer/Editor add. But watching him peel ginger with a spoon made me sad.

Fresh ginger is fantastic and very useful, but many people avoid it because peeling it is such a pain. ...and if you are using a knife or vegetable peeler, potentially dangerous to your fingers.

The technique I learned from peeling literally hundreds of pounds of fresh ginger: (for a restaurant serving ginger beer and other in-house-made sodas)
1. Put a cut-proof glove (available at your local restaurant supply store or online) on your non-dominant hand.
2. Get a stainless steel wire brush (the kind for stripping paint - preferably with a plastic handle) for your dominant hand.
3. Scrub! You should be able to finish a 50lb box of ginger in 45min or so. The first few pounds are slow, but you'll quickly get into the rhythm.

For bonus points, you can thoroughly wash the ginger first, and save the peels to make tea.
posted by Anoplura at 10:54 PM on April 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

One of the main takeaways from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is that salt is really important for flavor, and if you want your home cooking to taste like the stuff in restaurants, you probably need to add more salt. Like, a lot more.

For cooking pasta, you want to add a metric shitton of salt (that's the official measurement) to the water. Most of that will go down the drain, so don't be too hesitant. Salt that water, majorly. Just be careful not to put too much of it in the sauce.
posted by zardoz at 10:23 PM on April 14

Honestly, from cooking in restaurants, my main takeaway was that the biggest difference was in the amount of added fat. You definitely end up adding more salt (and acid) to balance it out, but it's the fat that comes first.

Think about a salad or hamburger or pasta sauce. You can dump on the salt, but they aren't going to taste any "richer". Your palate isn't so far removed from that which evolved when we were hunter-gatherers. We still prefer fattier, umami-dense flavors which signify lots of nutritionally available calories.
posted by Anoplura at 11:05 PM on April 14, 2020

Go team salt and fat! My sister studied at the Culinary Institute and described the pro-salt, pro-fat graffiti there that was so subversive in the 90s.

It just occurred to me that the perfect way to finish off the rest of the bottle of champagne that was half used to reconstitute the apricots and jerky would be to make a sorbet that could be served with the toasted granola for dessert.

If the fridge counts as an extension of the pantry, a few items that have in recent years become my favorite staples are: a jar of anchovies, duck fat, that super course fancy mustard and a bottle of extra dry vermouth. None of these makes a meal in themselves of course, but they all hold pretty well and boost otherwise mundane dishes.
posted by St. Oops at 12:52 AM on April 15, 2020

Also it's lovely to see videos where Claire is not suffering.

If you haven't yet seen her April Fool's takeover of It's Alive, man, it's delightful. She is so damn happy the whole time.
posted by mosst at 5:26 AM on April 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

I love BA's videos, and I love watching Brad

Brad's style reminds me of young Bill Murray.
posted by mikelieman at 7:07 AM on April 15, 2020

Yeah, it seems to be a Thing in cooking videos (not just theirs, by a long shot) to claim "a couple tablespoons of oil" then glug in a quarter of a bottle. I've even seen Jacques Pepin do it again and again.

This was super common back in the "...and then pull the end result out of the oven" days of cooking shows, when the thing they took a bite out of at the end was not the thing they were demonstrating with the ingredients.
posted by rhizome at 10:37 AM on April 15, 2020

All I know is they NAILED the outro. Well, that and I have been cooking pasta wrong my entire life.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:47 AM on April 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've gotten tons of canned mackerel from Asian and dollar stores in NYC. And bonus, it's usually cheaper than sardines, tuna or anchovies!

That is a very hot tip, Borborygmus! The tin she was brandishing was definitely some fancy frikkin conservas that go for $8+ per can. Learning that I can find essentially the same product for cheaper is awesome!
posted by merriment at 11:19 AM on April 15, 2020

Okay, so I made Claire's Crispy Chickpea Pasta for lunch today, being inspired when I realized that I had all the ingredients on hand.

It was DEE-lishus.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 1:35 PM on April 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

/derail/
I never really get why people were so surprised by oil quantity.... I have actually measured out a "few" tablespoons... So let's say I define "few" as 3-4ish tablespoons.... That's just under1/4th of a cup... That's actually way more than most people (even chefs!) would put into a dish. I would suspect that most people estimate a teaspoon size, not tablespoons.

/derail/

What was educational was seeing what everyone's home kitchen looks like, and how things are set up!
posted by larthegreat at 4:44 PM on April 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I agree with larthegreat. We’re constitutionally bad as a species at judging volumes, and when you add to that the fact that it’s being poured from a bottle I think one would be hard-pressed to gauge from a video how much actually came out. Consider that four tablespoons of oil in a 10” skillet will give you a veritable lake of oil, and it doesn’t seem that far off. That and the people in those videos are eyeballing from experience but giving measurements for people who maybe haven’t developed the same level of intuition that chefs have regarding the quantities involved.

Anyway, my personal favorite things to do with a red sauce: deglaze with a little vinegar once the onions and garlic are about done at the beginning. There shouldn’t be too much fond, obviously, but what there is is still going to be tasty and the vinegar really enhances the tomatoes by adding back some of the brightness you’d get from them raw but without the...raw flavor. Add some nutmeg (I’ve actually never tried toasting it in the oil a little before adding the tomatoes, I bet that could work well). And MSG, because it makes things taste good. Relatedly, Carla is my favorite BA person.
posted by invitapriore at 6:54 PM on April 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

In case you haven't clicked through the related or just had YouTube serve it up as the next in line, they do, in fact, have tours of their home (or home away from home) kitchens.

Just once, though, I'd like to see a pro chef complain about inadequate electric circuits in their home kitchens. I've had this problem twice. The first time was a rental where we discovered we couldn't make coffee and toast at the same time (or, horrifyingly, make either coffee or toast if the TV was on, two rooms away from the kitchen). But it was a rental, and we figured out when to make what (and when to turn off the TV).

Now I own a house and the countertop outlets are all on the same circuit as the fridge for some reason. Once again, it is impossible to make coffee and toast at the same time. Plus there's a nice bit of counter that would be perfect for small appliances (like a toaster) except for how it doesn't have a countertop outlet at all. But the oven, next to that power void, has a dedicated circuit it doesn't need BECAUSE IT'S A GAS OVEN. There's also an island, but the island doesn't have power at all, because nobody would ever need to, say, use a mixer on the biggest prep surface in the whole kitchen. My solutions to all of this nightmare were:

(1) a six port tap in the outlet behind the oven, into which (1a) the toaster, and (1b) a short, appliance-rated extension cord are permanently plugged in. The toaster lives on the counter; the extension cord runs to the end of the counter, where I can switch out other appliances like the Instant Pot or the immersion circulator, as needed. If I ever need TWO other countertop appliances at once on that surface I have to pull the oven out to plug one in. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

(2) an IKEA work cart/table thing (you know the one, with the butcher block top, one leaf that folds up, and wheels on two of the four legs), stuffed into the only corner of the dining room that has an electric outlet (which, thankfully, is on a different circuit from anything in the kitchen). The stand mixer lives on top of it; the food processor lives down below, and instead of lifting that up I just sit on the floor whenever I need to use it. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

I'd like to get a Breville Smart Oven but literally the only counter space that's even remotely a candidate for it is the space right next to the oven, and if I had the Smart Oven I wouldn't also have the room for a hot half sheet pan fresh out of the oven, which I have now, as long as the Instant Pot isn't just sitting there also being in the way. At least it's light enough to move easily. The stand mixer was not.

If we ever had the budget for not only an electrician to rewire the kitchen, but a drywall guy to come in afterwards to fix all the damage the electrician would have to do, we'd probably have the budget just to redo the whole damn kitchen anyway.
posted by fedward at 7:17 PM on April 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

inadequate electric circuits in their home kitchens

Oh dear LORD this, so many times! This goes back to my theory that not a single goddamn architect designing homes actually does any of their own cooking whatsoever, with the result that kitchens are afterthoughts shoehorned into whatever minor corner of a dwelling isn't being occupied by something else more "useful" (such as an egregiously oversized bathroom you could throw a freaking party in? Why??). I've lived in far too many different places in my lifetime, and not one has had an adequate kitchen in it. Drives me nuts. It...i-it...flames. Flames, on the side of my face...
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:42 PM on April 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

I never watch videos that are that long but that was delightful. I learned the importance of butter and kosher salt. It was also great to see such a variety of takes on pastas, not just pseudo Italian, but the Mexican and Egyptian versions were great to learn about and inspiring! Pasta and rice together, yes, why not! Pasta and avocado! Of course!
posted by like_neon at 2:14 AM on April 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

I love the differences in people's kitchens, from the "NYC apartment" to "parents' place in the suburbs" to "vacation house" (goddamn, spending quarantine in a vacation house kitchen would be terrifying).

I knew most of the tricks, but this video did make me realize 1) I should get a spider, and 2) I need to embrace anchovies more, in the sense of actually buying and keeping them in the fridge 3) I need to stop buying the absolute cheapest brand of pasta.

Here's the pantry pasta that I made a few days ago that turned out really great. It started out as a "vegan 1 pan pasta" recipe I found on Pinterest but I hate those 1 pot pasta recipes and I made it not vegan by virtue of a copious amount of parmesan :D

1 lb spaghetti or other pasta
1 onion, chopped
~4 cloves garlic, chopped (or 1-2 TBSP pre-chopped)
1 TBSP tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chickpeas
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
1/4 cup capers
1/2 375 mL jar green olives*, pitted and roughly chopped
(optional) whatever other veg needs using up (e.g. zucchini or spinach. I used a half a monster sized zucchini)
(optional) some parsley or basil if available. I had some parsley
parmesan

cook spaghetti
while water is boiling, cook onion in olive oil,
then add garlic & cook a bit
then 1 TBSP tomato paste & cook a bit
then add the rest: canned tomatoes, chickpeas, artichoke hearts, capers, olives, and other ingredients, plus maybe 3/4 cup of pasta water
bring to boil, then cook at a vigorous simmer/almost a boil for 20 mins or so to break down the tomato chunks a bit
add a bunch of parmesan and the pasta


* Canadians! No Name "Spanish Queen" green olives in a jar are good!
posted by quaking fajita at 5:10 AM on April 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've got 4 outlets in my kitchen all on their own circuits - 3 on the counter and 1 on the island. It is so nice not to have to worry about tripping the breaker because I want to make toast, coffee and frothed milk at the same time. Although I still do worry because I've been conditioned to over my lifetime. I don't know if it was our electrician doing a good job or if it was mandated by code but it's probably the best-wired place in the house - if I want to use my router (the woodworking kind) I have to run a cord from my kitchen because it'll trip the breaker anywhere else, which is kind of weird because I never had that problem in the other places I lived.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:11 PM on April 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Update: Costco had Season brand mackerel, boneless, skinless, in olive oil. Six tins for $9.99. I wonder how many times I’ve looked past it.
posted by fedward at 3:50 PM on April 16, 2020

Okay, so I made Claire's Crispy Chickpea Pasta for lunch today

I would love to learn a Googleable name for this!
posted by rhizome at 5:31 PM on April 16, 2020

I'm not sure about that, but I also made Claire's pasta and it's excellent - so much more than the sum of its parts. I might even call it my ideal quarantine food. Definitely going into the regular rotation.
posted by mosst at 4:21 AM on April 17, 2020

I found a meyer lemon in the back of our fridge, and we the Meyer lemon pasta- and it was transformative. We threw in a handful of kale we had knocking around, but frying thinly sliced lemons? it was amazing. Tasted summery, but was still substantial, and something we would/will easily serve to guests.

We timed it, and it took 12 mins including all prep. A++. (we then devoured it in silence in 10 mins, but details)
posted by larthegreat at 5:22 AM on April 17, 2020

Regarding peeling ginger - use a spoon. It's quick and safe. Perhaps, Anoplura's wire brush method is the best choice if you have 50lb to peel. But for home use, a spoon works great.
posted by ShooBoo at 4:39 PM on April 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

frying thinly sliced lemons

this works well when roasting too, fyi. Usually on top of chicken or fish.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:58 PM on April 17, 2020

> NotMyselfRightNow: "On a related note, I never had any interest in making risotto until I saw this yesterday ." Think of it as a form of savory rice pudding. I don't love rice, but risotto with good stock, lots of onions, some wine, is delicious and comforting.
posted by theora55 at 1:19 PM on April 20, 2020