“Hey Sprout, do you want tomato and cheese with your pasta, or peas and cheese?”
“Cheese!”
“Yes, but do you want tomatoes, or peas?”
“Peas!”
“Peas and cheese?”
“PEAS AND CHEESE!”
That’s how that conversation went with SB today, having spent all day painting and cleaning and coming home to a rather limited cupboard (and equally limited levels of energy to drag myself in the kitchen to cook – yes, I have off days too…) I decided to fall back on pasta, a piece of cheese in the top of the fridge, and gave him the option of accessorising it with either half a can of chopped tomatoes, or half a can of mushy peas. This resulted, and I watched astounded as he devoured the lot, mentally adding it to my ‘quick lazy dinners’ list…
Ingredients (Serves 4):
300g pasta, 23p (39p for 500g, Sainsburys Basics)
300g mushy peas, 19p (19p, Sainsburys Basics)
Cheese (I used a Sainsburys Basics mozzarella ball at 44p for 125g, I’d have preferred hard cheese but didn’t have it in!)
Optional – 1 vegetable or chicken stock cube, 2p (20p for 10, Sainsburys Basics)
Optional – Handful of mint – from the herb garden.
First, bring a saucepan of water to the boil, adding the stock cube to the water. Add the pasta and reduce the heat to simmer for around 10 minutes.
When the pasta is soft, drain most of the liquid into a mug, bowl, jug, other pan – whatever you have to hand. If this is difficult, use a large spoon to spoon as much as possible from the pan to a mug, jug, etc. You’ll need this in a minute.
Tip the pasta back into the saucepan, and pour the can of mushy peas on top. Add grated cheese and a little stock to loosen the liquid slightly to form the sauce. Bring back onto a low heat to heat the peas through and melt the cheese. Add more stock if required – I like my sauce thick and textured, but you can make it as sloppy as you like.
Serve with chopped mint, if using, or extra cheese. Eat in a bowl, with the kids, and marvel at how surprisingly
delicious it is. I despise mushy peas – but I was licking the spoon on this one. Definitely one for the ‘lazy’ folder. Well, one can’t soak chickpeas seven days a week…
Jack Monroe. Follow me on Twitter @MxJackMonroe. Find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/agirlcalledjack
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