The Unsophisticated Noodle

After looking through all of the pictures I took of this dish, I've decided that there is some implicit characteristic in the macaroni noodle that makes it seem...unsophisticated. Maybe it's the years of associating the noodle with the yellow powdery 'cheese,' or the kindergarten craft projects where the dried noodle takes center stage, but I quite honestly considered giving you another soup or dessert recipe and skipping one of the few dinners I've had a chance to cook lately. Obviously, I changed my mind.

As Daniel mentioned earlier, we're trying (he with more success than I...) to stick to what's in the pantry and only purchase fresh vegetables. So, after staring aimlessly I decide that the ingredients I need to use include leftover macaroni noodles (another long story), and some chicken leg pieces. I quickly decided to roast the chicken, because to be honest, that's my new favorite way to enjoy chicken because of flavor and moist dinner it creates with minimal work from me. And then there were the noodles...what to do with the noodles...


You can find a simple roast chicken recipe here. As you can guess, I left the leg piece whole and didn't make the sauce or vegetable part and it worked well.
To try to keep it simple, all I did was saute an onion, garlic, and a few green, red, and yellow peppers and then raided the canned section of our pantry for tomato products for tomato paste and diced tomatoes, and added a cup or so of red wine to give the sauce a slightly more earthy flavor to compliment the basil I covered the chicken in. Once the tomato sauce mixture was assembled, I added in the leftover noodles to basically warm them up in the sauce while the chicken finished.


Peppery Tomato Sauce with Macaroni Noodles
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 Green Bell Pepper
1/4 Red Bell Pepper
1/4 Yellow Bell Pepper
1/2 Small Onion
1 Garlic Clove
1 Small Can Tomato Paste
1 Can Stewed Tomatoes
1/2 Cup Dry Red Wine
1/2 Cup Water
1 Tsp Basil
1 Tsp Thyme
Salt & Pepper to Taste
2 Cups Cooked Macaroni Noodles


1. Slice peppers and onion thinly; mince garlic. Saute vegetables in saucepan with olive oil until tender over medium high heat.
2. Add can of tomato paste, stir about one minute. Add stewed tomatoes, red wine, and spices. Add water as needed to thin to appropriate consistency. Once sauce is slightly thin, add cooked macaroni noodles. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally until noodles heated through and ready to serve. 

Suffice to say, not my most blog-worthy looking dinner ever, but it was still quite tasty, and was a success at not going to the store to pick up something else. We'll see how the rest of my dinner's go sticking with this 'no going to the store' thing...


Enjoy!