Improvization

I was supposed to make Red Sauce for friends who have newborn twins and not much time or energy to cook (because it's tasty and you can use it in interesting ways) but time kept sneaking away from me and it got to be six pm.

Red sauce needs time to cook.  Marriage and swyving of flavors and all that.

So.  Larder.  Odds and ends of various pastas but not enough for diners > 1.  Garlic.  A portabella mushroom.  I'd eaten the bell pepper a couple of days ago.

But I'd promised.  And you can't go too wrong with pasta.

Off to chain supermarket, where I explained, telephonically, that there'd been a change in menu.

Then I bought 2 12-oz boxes of similar-cooking-time pasta, 2 bell peppers, a container of grape tomatoes, and a pint of low-fat ricotta, and got to work.

Ingredients (additional possibilities in brackets):

• Enough olive oil.
  
• (ETA) Garlic.
• Any two pasta shapes that take approximately the same time to cook.  Capellini and fettucine, for example, will not work.
• Portabella mushroom[s].
• 2 Bell peppers, preferably contrasting.
• 1 pint low-fat ricotta.  Probably high-fat ricotta also works.
• Grape tomatoes.
• [ETA:  Capers and/or olives, if sodium content is not an issue; I'm working the low sodium line here.]

Preparation:

• Cut up:
• Portabella mushroom[s] into cubes
• Bell peppers
• [Onion]
• [Ginger.  Not a whole lot.]
• [Chicken or cold cuts]
• [Broccoli or something]
• Bring water to boil and stir in the pastas.
• Crush, chop, or otherwise render [onions, ginger, and] garlic cloves and saute in large frying pan.  Add the mushrooms, cook them down, add the bell peppers.  [Add other bracketed ingredients.]
• When pasta is done, drain, rinse in cold water, decant into large container, using two tablespoons of olive oil to prevent clumping.  Empty sauteed ingredients into pasta, stirring to distribute well.  Stir in ricotta cheese, being sure to coat all elements.  Top with the grape tomatoes.

Eat, dolling, eat.