Easy Meal

pizza pasta

Budget (stretched) and income (flat) being what they are, along with helping one daughter with college over the past 5 years, and looking towards having daughter #3 begin college in the fall, and daughter #4 following along in 4 years, we almost never go out to eat.  Maybe once a month, but sometimes we go months at a time without eating at a restaurant.  I don't like to spend my "out to eat" money on fast food, so I have a repertoire of easy, no-think, practically-cook-themselves dinners that I rely on for those "I don't know what to fix" or "I don't really feel like fixing anything" nights.  These dinners are also easily re-heated.  With 2 teens, and a husband whose job requires attendance at city government meetings held at night anywhere from 1 to 3 nights a week (like tonight), we seldom have everyone eating dinner at the same time anymore, so whatever I make needs to be able to hold and be reheated.

Tonight I made Pizza Pasta.  I usually make our own pizza, and inevitably I prep more toppings than we need for the pizzas.  Sliced onions and peppers go a l-o-n-g way on a pizza, as do olives, sun dried tomatoes, sausage, or whatever.  This recipe makes use of those leftover toppings (or one can make it instead of pizza if one doesn't want to mess with a pizza crust.

In a large bowl put 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, along with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 1/2 t of Italian seasonings, 1/2 t of balsamic vinegar, some chopped tomatoes or cut up dried tomatoes that have been soaked and drained, and any other prepared (cooked) pizza toppings you want -- either heated or room temp, you don't want them ice cold (onions, peppers, sausage, pepperoni, olives, etc) -- and mix it all up.  Meanwhile cook a pound of short pasta, drain and add the hot pasta to the bowl and mix it all up together.  Mix in 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese and 1/2 cup (or however much to your liking) of mozzarella cheese (the heat of the pasta will melt all of this).  Add pepper if needed.  After I put it in a serving bowl I topped it with some more mozzarella.  Seems like if one had particular eaters, one could have the pizza toppings as add-ins for individual servings rather than all mixed in.

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