Pasta can be cheap

[Mike_Joiner]

You can make a really cheap and tasty meal with pasta. You get it in fine Italian restaurants and they charge loads. Do it yourself and it costs virtually nothing! Anyone else got good, simple pasta dishes?

Fry some garlic in oil, add some tomatoes, few dried chillie seeds, parsley, capers and mint.

Fry up for about 3 mins (nice and quick saving electricity/gas :-) ) boil your pasta and you're away!

[Aleta]

You can also cook your pasta and at the last minute, spoon in pesto sauce. You can also sprinkle the pasta and pesto with Romano or parmesan cheese (Fresh) I like the classico pesto sauce in a jar. Great to have on hand when company comes over. The pesto sauce is just perfect, then just add bread and a salad.

[devils_advocate]

So true... Good post. I used to love eating at Olive Garden, but I just can't afford to eat there anymore. I can make one of their $13 dishes for about $2 (and it's probably a lot healthier too). Now I'm working on the salad and breadsticks.

[Aleta]

The way I prepare my bread is to crush a bunch of cloves of garlic with a garlic press and place mixture in a small bowl, add extra-virgin olive oil, and salt. Some like to add Italian parsley. It's up to you. I heat the bread, be it Italian, or whatever, usually without slicing it. I then cut it diagonally across and spread the oil and garlic mixture on the bread. Delicious. Sometmes, we use the same oil and garlic mixture and put sliced tomatoes on the bread.

[txex86]

Great ideas on how to prepare Italian bread.

[Mike_Joiner]

I think carbonara can be pretty cheap as well. It's cream, eggs, onion, pepper and ham/bacon I think.