Alien Grey here. Today I have a tip for the single Alien. You know, and I know that some days, you just don't feel like cooking. Or you don't quite know what to cook. Or it all seems like a big effort. Or you're going to cook, but it's looking a bit bland.
Well the answer my friend is "Pasta Sauce"
In the old aeons, an Alien wanting pasta had to get up the crack of dawn, and spend the whole day making pasta. It was big effort. The pasta sauce took even longer requiring the Alien to simmer and bubble tomatoes and other strange vegetables of plasma coils. A good pasta sauce could take days to make.
These days they come in jars. You can buy hundreds of different types with all the effort reduced to twisting the lid with your three green fingers. With pasta readily available, dinner can be reduced to under 15 minutes cooking time, and about 3 minutes preparation time. With wholemeal pasta and a decent sauce this can be fairly healthy too. Alien Grey finds the organic pasta sauces tend to be the healthiest as well.
But here is the magic secret. Pasta sauce goes on anything.
Grilled tuna a bit bland? - Throw on some pasta sauce.
Steamed chicken a bit dull? - Throw on some pasta sauce.
Want a substitute for butter? - Throw on some pasta sauce.
Want to have some pasta? - Throw on some pasta sauce.
It's the most versatile ingredient around, and you can have it with pretty much anything. You can pick your sauce to suit your foot, although my Alien tastes buds tend to prefer a tomato based sauce with chillies or anchovies most of the time.
Pasta sauce is also easy to cook (if I can use that word). You can heat it up in the microwave, you can stir it directly in to the dish, you can even dish it cold over food if you like. It's near impossible to screw up.
If you want a bit more of your daily fruit and veg, because the AHO (Alien Health Organiseation) recommends it, you can easily add this directly to your pasta sauce.
Alien Grey Pasta Enhancing Tip
- Take ½ an onion, peel it and stick it in the microwave in half a water that comes up to half way on the onion. Microwave it on full power for about 4-5 minutes till soft.
- Microwave some peas and corn for about two minutes.
- Drain water from pasta. Put pasta back in pot.
- Chop microwaved onion, throw in pot.
- Throw peas and corn in pot, along with pasta sauce. Stir once.
- Put pasta back in pot. Stir till sauce hot (about 2 minutes)
- Stir in some extra chilli sauce if you like that extra kick as most aliens do.
- Chop 2-3 fresh tomatoes and leave on plate.
- Dish pasta over plate
There you have it. Magic pasta sauce, some extra veg, prep time 5 mins. cooking time 15 mins. Satisfaction rating high. Health rating high.
Alien Grey thinks pasta sauce is so magical it's out of his world. Which it is, since pasta sauce comes from earth and he doesn't.
1. Karen
I’m impressed. I always find microwave cooking complicated and mysterious.
2. matthew
I use a similar recipe, but it involves frying the onions with garlic, chilli, herbs, fresh tomatoes, and searing a bit of tuna along with, add some organic pasta sauce and a tin of chopped toms, bubble for a bit and there ya go. Goes best with fusilli pasta as this particular type of pasta ‘grabs’ onto the sauce best. Sprinkle with cheese, soy sauce (my secret ingredient) and black pepper, serve with a piece o’ crusty bread.
MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….
3. Alien Grey
See that’s great, but for the single Alien who is feeling lazy that is making the sauce.
The tip I was trying to put forward is that you can get away with using pasta sauce for anything, and you don’t need to actually make it anymore. That above is almost making it again.
Also frying, not so healthy. Although using soya instead of oil makes it less fattening (although high salt content).
Actually when I’m not feeling so lazy, I find that onions, chilli, garlic and tomatoes can be thrown in with just about anything to make a meal.
4. Francesca
Blasphemy ! It takes 20 minutes to make sauce from scratch and 35 to make fresh pasta (including rest time).
Bah.
5. Francesca
Damn, started my comment before you had posted yours. My confessions on making my own are:
I do not like the taste of most bought sauces
I am part Italian and there would be a collective grave roll if I committed to pasta jars for life.
6. Alien Grey
It takes 3 seconds to open a jar. it takes 3 seconds to open a bag of pasta. Net savings 54 minutes, 54 seconds.
And for the average Alien cook like myself, one could question if sauce I made from scratch would taste very much differently, or better to one from a jar.
For the most part I’m happy using a jar. Especially for food I eat sitting on the floor of the space ship while watching earthling TV.
For amazing authentic Italian sauces out of a jar, you can always use Dress Italian
7. Gordon
Of course the downside is, like most Aliens, Alien Grey appears to have no opposable thumb, rendering the jar opening a cumbersome task at best.
8. matthew
You are, of course, forgetting Alien Greys’ ability to open jars using his superior Alien Mind Powers, thanks to his cosmically-enhanced alien cerebral cortex. Or ‘space-brain’, even, as I like to call it.
You see?
9. Em
Three words… Pasta And Pesto… you can cook it in one saucepan as well. If you go for fresh pasta your cooking time is under 10 minutes, so you can lovingly stare at the food cooking while downing a glass of wine.
10. Alien Grey
Pesto is great, and all aliens love it (it comes in green after all), but it’s also about 50% fat so not for the slimming alien.
11. Karen
Even the more expensive jar sauces taste slightly over-processed to me, and contain suspicious quantities of sugar and salt. Set against the couple of teaspoons of olive oil in which I would saute my onions and garlic, I’m not convinced that the jar is the healthier option.