
Here’s another meal I made to use up leftovers from my pantry. This time I used a bottle of Merlot I’ve been using for cooking for a couple of months, canned tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and basil and bottled parmesan cheese. It was surprisingly delicious and so easy to make. I had more than enough Merlot so the sauce came out richly flavored. This had plenty of garlic but I still stashed a head of garlic in my luggage at the last minute!
Preparation was easy, just browned some Italian sweet sausages and threw in almost a whole head of peeled, crushed garlic. Then I threw in a can of crushed tomatoes with basil and balsamic vinegar. I let that stew for about half an hour and found my remaining 1/8 bottle of cooking merlot and threw that in. At the last minute, I checked for seasoning like salt and pepper and more basil. Then I mixed in a batch of cooked spaghetti noodles and served hot. Since I was out of wine, we had this with beer and sat down to a World Series ballgame on TV.
That sounds pretty easy! And that’s a great recipe for making good use of the leftovers. I’ll try to remember that when I come upon those ingredients.
wow merlot for spaghetti! sounds good to me…merry christmas mita!
Toni, it WAS easy. Now that I’m back in the Philippines, I’m thinking of making my own Italian sausages. I was trying to get some casing from my longganisa supplier who volunteered to GIVE it for free. Only in the Philippines, huh?
And a belated Merry Christmas to you, Ces! I’ve been so busy with things I couldn’t even find time to greet everyone at LP…