Dinner ideas for busy parents

This is a pretty basic pasta sauce, but so tasty. It's only failed us once, due to illness; otherwise tomatoes seem to be a guarantee of good eating.

Amatriciana Sauce (1.5 to 2 hours)

- cut streaky bacon into thin strips, across the rasher; I use two or three packs at a time and my biggest pan, which is about wok-sized
- chop about the same volume of onions (3 or 4 onions) into small pieces; basically dicing it, I'd chop it bigger but that gives the boy an excuse to pick it out of the sauce
- either chop garlic very fine, or use garlic paste like I do; I don't use a soffrito base for this sauce, so I use loads of garlic
- first fry the bacon with lots of olive oil on a medium heat, until it goes brown; this I have trouble with, sometimes it doesn't go brown at all, other times it starts to brown; ideally you're trying to get it slightly crispy, or at least so it won't be chewy
- then add the onions, garlic, and some chili; fry at a slightly lower heat until soft; for this I cover the whole mixture with a big saucepan lid, so it part-fries-part-steams; when the onions are soft and translucent, it's ready
- don't eat all the mixture at this point; it's gorgeous and makes a great sandwich filling
- add passata or chopped tomatoes, some tomato purée, and a sugar lump or two; let it simmer for an hour to reduce a bit, but not too thick
- finish off with a dash of worcester sauce for seasoning

- this'll make about six three-person meals; it freezes perfectly
- I serve with spaghetti; cook just past al dente, then drain and add your sauce
- stir the whole pot on a high heat for a minute or so; this finishes off the spaghetti and turns it bright orange, and leaves the bacon at the bottom of the pan
- serve the spaghetti, spoon the bacon on top as a garnish

last minute pasta if you have a lot of veggies lying around

doesn't require meat, but sauteed chicken is good

sautee whatever veg you have: onions, garlic, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms (or whatever you like)
optional: add some halved cherry tomatoes, or a can of fire-roasted tomatoes if you prefer, to the sauteed veg
if you want you can cook the tomtatoes down for 5 or 10 minutes so they release a bit more juice
turn off the heat, add a chopped avocado, and stir gently so that the avocado breaks down a little and the juices create a sort of sauce. (it works fine without the tomato)

Dump the veg/avocaddo mix into pot with the cooked, drained (still hot) pasta & stir

add half a bunch of spinach leaves, and mix in with the pasta til the spinach has wilted.

eat.