Chasing Dreams

Not like you’d take culinary pointers from someone whose diet includes instant noodles, and canned foods, and fried everything — fried egg, fried fish, fried chicken nuggets — I know.

But I’m trying to help here, cut me some slack, because I believe in my heart that somewhere out there there’s someone like me who’s struggling with trying to get a decent meal something new on her plate once in a while, I mean, you’ve gotta give your body a break from Lucky Me Pancit Canton too, right?

So. Before I start my workday, I’m going to educate you about the amazing things you can do with Century Tuna, and 30 minutes of your day in the kitchen.

First off, the ingredients:

• One can of Century Tuna (Lite, if you’re worried about getting fat)
• One 150g pack of Del Monte Tomato Sauce (or whatever brand you prefer)
• One small can of Libby’s Vienna Sausage (an alternative to ham, bacon, or salami)
• Your favorite brand and type of pasta (penne, linguine, angel hair, alphabet noodles, whatever suits you)
• Butter (fine, get the Lite version too, paranoid!)
• Salt, and pepper (just for kicks)

Optional:

• Parmesan (if you’re like me who stocks up on Parmesan and mozzarella cheese in her ref as secret ingredients to everything — I should teach you that Cheesy Fish Fillet recipe of mine next)
• Green bell pepper (I wasn’t able to buy some because I didn’t really plan on making tuna spaghetti yesterday)
• Tomato Paste (if you like the somekinda-sour Italian style rather than the sweet-Filipino taste)
• Herbs/Spices, i.e. Rosemary, Italian Spices, or Basil (I think I put in some basil in there)

Anyway, I said you need 30 minutes of kitchen-time, but mostly really, the longest part is cooking the noodles. And I will assume that you know how to cook noodles already, so I won’t give you a step-by-step on that anymore. Since I only have one stove in my teenyweeny bit of a kitchen, I’d use this time to dice the onion, chop the sausages, and prepare the ingredients while waiting for the noodles to cook.

The one thing I like about working at home is the opportunity to just take a break from work when it’s starting to become a drag, and experiment in the kitchen, which is just like, 5 steps away from my desk. (Then again, everything in this one-bedroom unit is 5-to-10 steps away.)

I’d invite you to my place and tour you around my kitchen, but that will only take us 3 seconds, so I took a picture instead to save you your cab money.

Everything in this kitchen is one step away!!

It’s tiny, I know, but come on, everyone has to start somewhere.

Uh, yeah. Back to the spaghetti.

Once you set aside the noodles, the next part is going to be a breeze.

*Inhale* Sauté the diced onions with butter. Put in the chopped sausages, wait til they turn golden-brown. Add in one can of Century Tuna, yes, including the oil that comes with it. Add a pinch of salt and some pepper. Mix, stir, sing a song, dance if you want, stretch while you stir some more. Then, when you feel (yes, people, you can feel it) that it’s time to put in the Tomato Sauce, go for the gold! Add a spoonful of Tomato Paste with that, not too much because you don’t want it to be too sour. Mix, mix, mix.

And voila, tuna spaghetti sauce! *Exhale*

But we’re not done yet. This last part may not be necessary, because you can always just top your noodles with sauce and Parmesan and you’re done. However, I found out that it’s actually kinda nice to throw in the noodles to the sauce pan and mix them together while the stove is still heated up.

It’s so hard to explain things in culinary words, let’s try pictures okay?

I meant something like this:

And yay, you’re done!

Now, some finish-product-photo-shoot, because I like to brag about my masterpiece. LOL.

Nomnomnom

Lay off on the softdrinks, kiddos, it’s bad for your health

You know what’s really sweet about this recipe? You can replace the Tomato Sauce with All Purpose Cream and tada, you have Tuna Carbonarra instead! *nods*

That’s right, people. Resourcefulness is the best policy. Happy eating!

Tagged oh yay look i'm cooking, recipes