We had way too much food for Thanksgiving, and therefore way too much food leftover. The in-laws took the turkey home, as well as a whole cheesecake and miscellaneous other things, but we still had plenty to shove into the fridge. They don't seem like the normal holiday leftovers, though. Olives, cheeses, spinach, and tons of ricotta (Dan bought way more than what I needed for the cheesecake) peppered in with the green beans and potatoes that you'd expect.
Well, I have to start clearing some of that out, right? It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta eat it. I chopped some kalamata olives and roasted garlic that I had leftover and let it heat in some olive oil for a few minutes with black pepper, crushed red pepper, and a little salt - not too much, the olives are salty. One small can of tomato paste then gets stirred in with just a tiny bit of water, the tiniest bit, really. Letting the tomato paste cook for a minute on the heat brings the flavor out. The pasta then gets tossed in, and for a thick sauce like this, I like some sort of pasta that collects the sauce - shells, or penne, or something like that. A good cup or so of the pasta water goes in with the pasta to finish the sauce. See? You didn't need much water to start with, after all.
That would be a good sauce by itself, but I also threw in the rest of the leftover ricotta, and a couple of teaspoons of parmesan. Gotta use the leftovers, right? What a hardship.
Now that is what I call leftovers.
Happy eating!
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