Cooking for 2: One Pot Pasta
As I’ve continued to try to stay home as much as possible, I’ve been trying to find dishes to make that don’t require a lot of effort, use ingredients that I already have at home (I don’t want to have to buy ingredients for a dish and not end up liking the dish or not be able to use the ingredient again), and don’t produce a lot of leftovers. I discovered one-pot pasta on TikTok. I’m not sure if it’s anything new, but it changes the way you make pasta, and it’s convenient. It’s like making food in an Instant Pot — everything goes in the pot. Oh, one other thing, my mom has a list of ingredients she can’t have, so when she fell in love with my pasta, I was over the moon. We’ve eaten this 4-5 times now over the last month and it’s a staple for us when the hunger hits. It only takes me about 15 minutes to whip together!
I ordered a box of groceries from Choco Market and was excited to use some of them. They are a local grocery delivery service available in SF, NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, and Seattle that has partnered with local wholesale suppliers that normally supply restaurants and hotels with fresh produce and other ingredients. The pandemic has disrupted restaurant and hotel operations, so now these fresh and high quality ingredients are accessible to household consumers. They have also been supporting hospitality relief efforts during the pandemic! Link to shop SF produce here. When you order by midnight, you get free next-day shipping. Minimum order: $100.
Choco market products used: Riverdog Farm kale, king oyster mushrooms, Mt. Lassen trout.
I chopped up all of my ingredients into small chunks. I wouldn’t chop too finely because you will be stirring the pot quite a bit to prevent the pasta and ingredients from sticking to the bottom, so keep that in mind.
Since my mom can’t have some of the ingredients that are normally found in canned pasta sauces at the store, I made my own. I buy Trader Joe’s 6oz tomato paste and scoop all of it into a 16oz Ball mason jar and fill (almost to the top) with water. Mix it well and you have a very simple tomato/pasta sauce.
For two servings, I used half the box of Banza’s chickpea rotini and half of the 16oz jar of sauce I made. You’re free to customize your pasta as you wish with your veggies and meats.
I poured half of my tomato sauce (8oz) into a pot on medium-high heat and added 6-8oz of water. Once it started boiling, I added the kale, mushrooms, tomatoes, and pasta. The pot should look like this (on the right). Make sure the pasta is covered and the pot has enough liquid to cook the pasta. Add additional water if needed in small amounts; if you add too much at once, the water may not be able to cook off. Banza’s rotini pasta requires roughly 9 minutes to cook and I ended up cooking it for a little bit more as I tasted the pasta around the 8 and 9 minute marks for “done”-ness.
Add seasoning, spices, and a dash of heavy whipping cream 1-2 minutes before the pasta is done. Spoon out your pasta into serving bowls and top with shredded cheese and mix if desired.
I prepared my trout separately, searing it on the pan, then finishing it off in the oven to cook the rest of the way as my pasta was cooking.
If you decide to give this a try, let me know how you like it! You can also do this with a creamy white sauce and switch out the pastas. I used the same method with linguine and it turned out great! The linguine we used required more time to cook, so I did have to add a bit more water into the post when it started to dry out a bit.
