Garbage Pasta

I know. The name is not appetizing. Let me explain.

This is pasta that is made of ingredients from your refrigerator and pantry that, if you don't use very soon, will be garbage. Hence, Garbage Pasta!

So, there's no real ingredients list, because what I needed to use up in my refrigerator will be different than what you need to get rid of. I'm just using mine as an example of what you can do.

I started with some leftover pasta sauce I had in the refrigerator. We'd had pasta around a week before and the pasta was gone, but there was about 3/4 of a cup of sauce left.

Then I had an eggplant that Elisabeth insisted I buy at the store because it was so "pretty" (which it was), but since no one likes eggplant but me, I hadn't done anything with it yet.
So, I chopped it up and decided it would go in the sauce.
See? I have the heat on a low-medium heat while I added things.
I had three large tomatoes that were going to start being funky if they didn't get used.
I chopped them into sections...
and added them to my sauce.
I also had some grape tomatoes that were starting to dry up.
I chopped the non-raisiny ones in half and tossed them into the sauce too.
These are sautéed mushrooms. There actually used to be a lot more of them, but I ate them. I love mushrooms. I really and truly do.
I also had 2 chicken quarters that needed used. I boiled them and decided to shred them for the pasta.
I used some of the chicken water from the boiled chickens to help my sauce liquify.
And I grabbed some tomato paste for a thicker texture to the sauce.
Stir it all together and let it simmer for a good 15-20 minutes.
Cook whatever pasta you have handy. I had egg noodles.
See? It looks like legitimate tomato sauce. That's because it is!
I topped the noodles with the shredded pasta.
Added all of the sauce.
And served.
I totally forgot to salt and pepper the sauce, so we had to add that to our plates as we ate. My kids loved it and didn't care about the random ingredients used to make it. Even Evan liked it, and he's always leery when he hears we're having garbage pasta (he thinks I'll add something like pineapple or something. Silly Evan.). So, just ransack your pantry and produce drawers and see what you can come up with to make your own wonderful pasta!

Enjoy!