Pasta & Creamy Sauce - Mushroom, Asparagus, Prawn or Bacon

This will give you an arsenal of options to defeat hunger. The greatest value I found, was the sauce being so easy to make as a base, and then flavored to your taste. Should you have visitors, you can have one sauce, whilst a guest can have another with very limited effort. It could make any bachelor look very sophisticated, and could invite a regular to your kitchen. So it does come with that warning.

Spaghetti & Creamy Mushroom Sauce

Pasta - Quantity and Procedure

Getting the quantity right is real easy. For a single person it works like this

   - Spaghetti - pick a bunch as thick as you thumb, or

   - Penne, shells, fusilli, or other shapes - a cup full should do the deal.

Boil a kettle of water in a pot. Add a spoon full of oil, and half a teaspoon of salt, then add the pasta. Boil for 15 minutes, whilst you make the sauce. At the end, the pasta will be cooked through, but still chewy. The oil prevents the pasta from sticking together and forming one huge lump, so add it!

Sauce Ingredients

 - 1 x tablespoon butter or margarine

 - 200 ml milk

 - 2 x tablespoons cake-flour

 - 1 x handful of grated cheese (optional)

 - Flavoring (one of these) - the preparation as described, thus ready to add when prompted

    - 5 x medium button mushrooms, uncooked and sliced, or
    - 3 x pieces of white canned asparagus, cut in 3 cm pieces, or
    - 8 x medium size shelled prawns (prawn meat), defrosted, or
    - 3 x strips of bacon, grilled and cut in pieces

How to do the Sauce

The base sauce is a simple white sauce, but the method presented here is foolproof to result lump free. Mix the milk and cake-flour and blend it proper; I use an electric stick blender which has a revolving blade at a million revolutions per minute and takes ten seconds to complete the action. If you do not have one, invest in this neat little tool. Melt a spoonful of butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the milk and flour mix, slowly whilst stirring. As soon as all the mix is added in full, add your chosen flavoring (mushrooms,  prawn meat, bacon, asparagus, etc), and keep on stirring. Do not overheat the mix, and switch off the heat when the mix start thickening, but is still runny. Milk can be added to thin the sauce whilst stirring, but things get tricky then. A bit of grated cheese (a hand full) can be added, as well as salt and pepper to taste. This entire procedure takes less than seven minutes.

Add the pasta to a bowl and pour the sauce over it to present your Italian masterpiece, topped with a touch of grated cheese. Whooala, we have a chef in the making. These dishes are excellent with white wine, cider or beer, and they can form the base of soothing culinary experience.

Fusilli & Creamy Prawn Sauce

Penne & Creamy Asparagus Sauce

Penne & Creamy Bacon Sauce