Aglio e olio

I think by the time one graduates high school, everyone should know how to cook 4 dishes:

1. your favorite meal (so that you don't have to rely on anyone else to make you happy)
2. an inexpensive and relaxed menu for having a few friends over
3. something impressive suitable for special occasions
4. something you can throw together quickly and with minimal effort at the end of a long day so that you don't spend your life eating crappy take-out

This is my #4.  All the ingredients are pantry or freezer staples (freeze whole peeled garlic cloves), except the fresh herbs which can be left out if none are available. 
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Pantry Puttanesca

This is one for which you can have all the ingredients lounging in your pantry/freezer any time, or at least until the canned goods expire.  The only need-to-shop-now, fresh additions might be a handful of chopped fresh herbs or a couple cups of leftover roasted/grilled/sauteed veggies.  I wouldn't go out of my way to cook anything special for this recipe, but if you've got some leftover zucchini or eggplant, this is a great way to use it up.

A traditional puttanesca sauce uses anchovies, black olives, capers and tomatoes for its base.  If you think you don't like anchovies, think again.  Anchovies are the major flavor ingredient in Worcestershire sauce, giving it the full, rich, salty, umami quality that Worcestershire sauce brings to your favorite marinade (which makes Worcestershire sauce not vegetarian, for anyone who cooks for vegetarian types). 

I choose to use sardines here because I'm currently hot for them, dietarily speaking, for the reasons outlined here.  You can use tuna or the traditional anchovies, if you prefer.  If using tuna or sardines, you can choose to leave them quite chunky (so as to be easily picked around) or flake them up quite a bit before adding to the sauce so they become more of a flavorful ghost in the machine rather than an upfront protein.

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Sardine Salad

This takes 5 minutes to prepare, start to finish.  No kidding.  No heating up the house with the stove or oven, and hardly any dishes to clean.  It's low-carb (even lower if you make your own dressing).  One serving is about 300 calories (if you are judicious with the salad dressing), and most of the ingredients live in your pantry.  The only thing you need to make sure to get fresh is the salad mix. 

But wait a minute...sardines??  I hear you in the Peanut Gallery.  Do you eat canned tuna?  Oh really, well sardines taste pretty much exactly like canned tuna, except not as dry.  And sardines are WAY better for you than canned tuna.  Sardines have more Omega-3 fatty acids than canned tuna, lower levels of mercury than canned tuna, more Vitamin D than canned tuna, and receive an uncomplicated "best choice" sustainability rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch versus the tiered rating canned tuna gets.

I highly recommend getting boneless, skinless sardines which are slightly more spensy than bone-in, skin-on but worth the savings in aggravation.  The kids didn't go bonkers for this, but they did eat some sardines.  I left the salad dressing off their plates.  The 1yo ate bites of sardine tucked into pieces of bread, and the 2.75yo ate it dunked in ketchup.  So don't skip this one just because you don't think the fam will like it...you never know until you try! 

No picture this time, since this was dinner after my extravaganza of prep-ahead cookery and I was just pooped.
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