More Absorption

In what I hope won't become a trend, I'm going to yet again recap one of my earlier entries– infusion pasta. I could say that the recipe below is sufficiently distinguishable from the first post – which is true – but that's not the whole story. Really, I don't know if the first post made the best argument for absorption pasta. Firstly, the picture is kinda ugly. If a parodist wanted to aim low and lampoon my blog they would probably start by noting the number of dishes that resemble some sort of brown (or dark orange) mess on a plate. When I'm trying to preach a new form of pasta making I should've probably led with a more vibrant colour (to say nothing of grounding it in tradition with tomato sauce). Secondly, its about twice as fast because you don't need to boil the water first. Thirdly, you don't have to bother with straining the pasta. Straining isn't the end of the world but its difficult if you have a full sink and a big pot. WIth this method, it just goes right on your plate. Finally, I mentioned that it was a better method for the environment but didn't break it down: If everyone in the US cooked pasta this way it would save half a million gallons of oil. Here I use whole what pasta – you don't need to of course – which I think really benefits from this style of cooking:

Whole Wheat Absorption Pasta with Tomato Sauce

Pasta

1 cup whole wheat pasta

2 cups liquid
Tomato Sauce

1 can (28 ounces) tomatoes

1 large carrot, chopped

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

Sautée the onion in the oil on medium-high for a few minutes. Put some oil in a pot, turn to high and add the pasta and then the liquid. Cook for the normal pasta cooking time. Normally I use stock, but for this meal I used a mixture of 1 part chickpea liquid to 1 part water (from cooking dried chickpeas, not that awful liquid from a can. More on that story later). I turned out quite well, I think. Meanwhile add the garlic, carrot and then the tomatoes to the onions. Turn down to medium and simmer for about 10 minutes. Puree and pour some over the pasta.

Serves 1, but its easily scalable.

Observent persons may notice that there are no mentions of mushrooms in the recipe, yet the picture shows mushrooms. That's because I made the pasta sauce in advance (that recipe will sauce many different meals) and sauteed some mushrooms for this meal. I don't know if I'd really recommend having three burners on the go as a routine matter as I did talk up environmental considerations.