A quick bowl of pasta is just the thing for either lunch or dinner, and sorts out the appetite in hot or cold weather. In other words a perfect day-round, year-round meal!

We’ve previously featured pasta dishes with cheese based sauces so here’s a quick tomato version for those of you who prefer the red stuff.

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• Salt and pepper
• 200g penne (or your preferred pasta)
• Optional: Dried oregano, red wine vinegar, chilli (dried or fresh), black olives

Method

1. Put a medium sized saucepan on the hob, over a medium heat and warm up the cooking oil. Once hot add the chopped onion and gently fry until soft.
2. Add the crushed garlic clove to the onion and fry for one minute, try not to let the garlic change colour to golden brown
3. Add the tin of tomatoes to the pan, stir thoroughly to combine and reduce the heat. At this point you can add some extra flavours if you have them in the house. Try a teaspoon of dried oregano, or dried chilli. A little drop of red wine vinegar will intensify the flavour and a few black olives will make a kind of puttanesca. Allow the sauce to gently putter away while you cook the pasta.
4. Put a separate larger pan of water on to boil. Add a large pinch of salt and cook the pasta by  following the instructions on the packet.
5. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and add to the pan of sauce, stirring through until fully coated. Serve immediately.