Pasta on the cheap

Pasta.  Most everyone loves it, from linguini alla vongole, farfalle, apple and walnut salad, to a good old spaghetti bolognese.  As a student, I picked up a 3kg bag of conchiglie for a few quid which lasted me three terms, plus a good few months into my first job.  Buy in bulk if you can and buy what's cheapest no matter what kind or shape. I've found wholemeal tends to be a bit cheaper and is better for you.

So without further ado, what did I find for the SupermarketValue Treatment® ?

Buon appetito

You'll notice this pasta isn't from my usual source of reduced items where "every little helps"  This find was from my local mini-market whose logo happens to be a tree in a circle.  Just to prove I'm not biased for or against any one supermarket.  Plus, obviously, it was reduced!

Cheap garlic, as we'll see, is not to be taken lightly.  I ended up planting one of the more sprouty-looking bulbs and it's coming along nicely.  The other bulb was split in half and pickled.  You could also use it to make flavored oils as well.

4 servings of fresh pasta for €1.25

Discount garlic.  Beware those little green shoots!

I'm going to keep this very simple, as I think the best thing to do to pasta is just that.

Tagliatelli all' oglio e olio.  (Noodles with garlic and oil)

Remove any green shoots from about 2-3 cloves of the garlic by cutting it in half and picking it out of the middle, as from bitter experience (literally) they don't taste good.  Chop finely and fry until soft in a few tablespoons of good olive oil. 
 Boil the tagliatelli for the requisite time, and drain.

Add the fried garlic and the oil to the pasta and toss.  Season with salt and pepper.  

That's it.

I got four servings out of this packet so some other budget pasta recipes I like and ate (other than spag. bol)

• Salt, pepper, butter, lemon.  Simple and fast.  I just ate it for lunch as I type this, 5 minutes from pan to plate.  Very tasty.
• Sliced sausage and tinned tomato & chilli sauce (see previous post) makes a nice warming arrabiata supper. 
• Tinned tuna, capers and cream.  Sweetcorn's cheaper than capers and also works

Other good budget pasta recipes to make are here , and here but my favourite cheap table-filler is pasta bake for using up leftover pasta.  A tin of value-grade chicken soup can be used as the base for a sauce of course.  Hmm... I've given myself an idea for a future post  (note to self, buy cheap chicken soup and value grade lasagne...)