Spaghetti with Turkey, Spinach and Olive Sauce

Some time last week, I came home too tired to cook. I could have done that thing where I just have instant noodles (or crisps, or chocolate) but I decided to pull myself together and make the effort, knowing I’d thank myself for it later. I had a few things in the fridge that had to be used up, and I supplemented them with some storecupboard and freezer items to make a proper meal.

Tonight, I have come home too tired to write the two blog posts that I know I need to write to fill up the rest of the week. Luckily, me from the past came home and cooked on that fateful night, so I have something I can write a quick post about. Thanks, me from the past!

Me from the future will probably be disappointed in me from the present for not writing a more detailed post for today (by which I mean the day on which this post appears online). However, when she sees Friday’s post (by which time she will simultaneously be me from the past AND me from the future, depending on whether you go by me from the present’s point of view or hers) she will understand that I had to reserve my blogging energy to write that one and will not be disappointed any more. She may or may not also feel a certain level of quantum confusion.

Today’s post doesn’t feature a recipe so much as a very rough guide to what I put in this last-minute, use-up-the-leftovers, didn’t-make-any-notes dinner. I had made a big pot of tomato and red wine sauce earlier in the week, and also had half a pack of minced turkey from another recipe, so those were the main components. The rest went like this:

• a spot of olive oil
• two cloves of garlic
• an amount of minced turkey that is probably about 200g
• a number of black olives greater than five but fewer than twenty
• an unspecified quantity of red wine and tomato pasta sauce
• a few blocks of frozen spinach
• salt and pepper
• enough pasta to choke a horse
• as much butter as seems appropriate at that given moment
• enough cheese to cover the pasta
• enough fresh parsley to look nice
• maybe more salt and pepper, and maybe some chili and fennel

I did tell you it was rough.

I crushed the garlic and cooked in the olive oil until it started to smell garlicky, then added the turkey and browned all over. While that was happening, I chopped up the olives, then added them to the cooked turkey along with the red sauce and the spinach.

I simmered the sauce for about twenty minutes, occasionally stirring and breaking up the spinach as it defrosted. Once the spinach was all mixed throughout I had a taste and seasoned a bit, as seemed necessary. I then put the pasta on to boil for about eight minutes – it depends what kind of pasta you use, obviously.

When the pasta was cooked, I stirred through a good knob of butter, then added to the sauce pot and mixed through. I usually like to give pasta a minute or two to really get mingley with the sauce, so I did that and then filled a massive bowl with the end result.

The final step is grating over some hard cheese and some chopped parsley, plus extra seasoning if you fancy it.

Then you feel glad that you cooked, and eat six bowls, and feel glad that you don’t choke as easily as a horse.