Let’s say you lived in a city and the housewives complained to the church and government that hookers were seducing their husbands. Working girls gotta eat (and sometimes feed husbands with bad cooks for wives), the girls were “encouraged” to shop one day a week, so quick recipes that could be whipped up between tricks from stuff in the pantry were born. This is my version, thrown together from stuff in the fridge door and the pantry.
The recipe: Shell pasta, cooked in salted boiling water for 8 minutes. While that’s cooking, open a can of San Marzano tomatoes while you are waiting for olive oil, garlic, and some chili sauce to heat up in a chef’s pan. Go to your fridge door. I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff you bought for recipes and maybe used a little, but not all of it. In my door there were artichoke hearts in oil, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, some leftover meatballs and anchovies. I know, you don’t like anchovies. Fine. You can leave them out, but they serve as a nice savory salty background note to the dish and they completely dissolve, so try one in the dish and if you don’t like it, chalk it up to experience and move on. Dice the frigde finds up fine and toss them into the pan with the now browned garlic and bubbling chili paste. Let things settle down a bit, then dump in the canned tomatoes and break them up with a potato masher. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes longer than it took to boil off the pasta.

A few grates from the cheese drawer and I’m digging in.