Easy Meals Easy Ingredients

It is hard to create and cooks even days a week. What do you make to satisfy not only family but self? There is a way. Just use simple ingredients that can be stretched into a variety of different dishes. Its easy and the recipes that come with it are easy too.

Regular contributor and master chef Yotam Ottolenghi wrote about this in Wednesday's New York Times Food section. He recommends using versatile ingredients like tomato sauce eggs and rice which figure large in the recipes he also gives.Tomato sauce can go over pasta one night while the next has it spooned over grilled fish or canned beans.Another way is t focus on the here and now of the hour. Cook something easy but substantial, complex but doable. Think a herby frittata with a whole block of feta dropped right in the middle. He gives a recipe for this .The frittata has eight large eggs  ,perfect for a family of four, along with a medium onion and baby spinach.These ingredients along make for a nice and light supper but Chef Ottolenghi adds a variety of bright herb.There's dill and cuminl eaves along with fiery Aleppo pepper for bite.  Then there's that big block of feta the eggs and other ingredients are whisked together and ser into a baking pan. The block of cheese is put in the middle and its  put on the middle rack of a 375 degree prep heated Farenheit oven. It can be served with toasty and buttered sourdough slices for more heartiness.

His sauce is  an unusual spin on a classic recipe.Any kind of tomato is used  ans he recommends using two pounds. Also two heads of garlic are minced and added in. Fresh herbs like oregano are also added a long with "soft" herbs like basil mint or tarragon (for a more authentic sauce just use basil)Sherry vinegar is also used for tang as is a pinch of sugar to contact the tomatoes' tang. This is not a traditional sauce.The tomatoes are roasted in a 375 degree Farenheit oven,  for thirty five to forty minutes. Stir occasionally and then remove. Once cooled add the sherry vinegar and garlic along with oil then mash the garlic cloves.Add fusilli pasta toss together and then add generous amounts of Parmesan cheese. There is also baked garlic rice. This has two cups of the long grained basmati rice first rinsed for a fluffier texture ans then added to a sheet pan with garlic and drizzled with olive oil.The garlic is roasted first in a pan in a 425 degree Farenheit oven for fifteen minutes. The ovenheat is raised to 475 Farenheit and the rice , four tablespoons of butter  and cloves along with cardommon, lemon ,zest and chicken broth is cooked in this .Stir well, nestle the garlic in the rice, heads up and bake for another twenty five minutes inder a foil tent. remove from the oven let the rice steam and thenash the garlic into the dish. Serve.

These are easy dishes with easy recipe and ingredients. They'rea tasty dinner for a busy night. Try them for simple but delicious eating.