Spaghetti 4 Ways

I had to ask my husband to open a couple of containers of my food storage today. If anything happens to him, and I need to use my food storage for any reason, I need a huge hammer to smash the lids on these containers. They do seal really well, so I know I'm not going to get any bugs in my stuff.

We found quite a few cans of spaghetti, baked beans, corn, tuna, dried beans (much to poor hubby's dismay), dried peas (much to my disgust) and some dried instant mashed potato that came from my mother-in-law, use by date '99. Somehow, I think I have to replace the instant potato!

Got me thinking about the spaghetti though. We're talking about the type with sauce and possibly cheese, not the plain kind you have to cook in water. What would you do with the spaghetti. Surely you'd get sick of it after a while.

LOL my daughter just reminded me I can use the dried peas to feed the fish "For their dinner". Thanks for that tip! Yes, goldfish ARE vegetarians and yes, they do love de-shelled peas, broken up a little depending on the size of your fish.

Back to spaghetti. I thought of a few things you could do with the spaghetti if you were simply rotating your food storage.

1. Spaghetti, cooked bacon, bread baskets (cut crusts of fairly fresh bread, cooking oil spray a muffin tin, put bread into muffin pans to make 'baskets', bake until just golden). Add spaghetti to cooked bacon, fill bread baskets and bake a little longer. Add cheese on top if you so desire. Not overly healthy, but my son can make this on his own!

2. Spaghetti bolognaise. Brown an onion and some mince, add perhaps some Italian Capsicum (see below post) and add your tin of spaghetti at the end to warm through.

3. Spaghetti, cheese and ham jaffles. Butter bread on 'wrong' side, fill with spaghetti, cheese and ham and cook in jaffle iron or those new jaffle makers that I always see, but never have the cash on me at the time. Then when I go looking for one, they're never around.

4. Spaghetti parcels. Cut a square of puff pastry up into 4 smaller squares, spoon tinned spaghetti in the centre. Fold up the corners and bake in a 200 degree oven for 15 - 20 mins until pastry is golden brown. My kids love this, and I love puff pastry so it keeps us all happy.

I have to note that we don't eat this type of food all the time. Tonight, for example, we had lamb hot pot with potato dumplings. Looooots of veggies involved, but on occasion I just can't be bothered cooking. Usually it's after I've already spent a day in the kitchen and I'm knackered. Takes two seconds to do something with a can of spaghetti though, and that's something to be happy about.

Happy cooking