Spaghetti Western

I've been clearing out the fridge again, making what my first mother-in-law, a Westerner who was born and raised in Oregon and lived most of her life in California, would call "pickup meals." A dab of this and a handful of that, artfully combined to make something delicious. Nothing works better for a pickup meal than a stir fry - or pasta.

Yes, that's cauliflower you see in there, and broccoli - a handful of each, plus slivered onions, half a can of chopped tomatoes, garlic slices, mushroom slices, a few rounds of salami cut into triangles and sautéed in olive oil (truth be told, they got a little too dark) plus a half a cooked breast of chicken pulled into bite-size pieces. Splashed after sautéing with a little white wine, sprinkled with some dried Italian herbs, and enriched with a spritz of tomato paste from a tube (I love tomato paste in a tube - makes me laugh).

The pasta was fished with tongs out of the salted water and dropped directly into the pan where all this awaited, tossed around and plated. I learned that little trick from another of my heroines, Lidia Bastianich - it makes the sauce stick better to the pasta.

Now that I've made this pickup meal, there's room in the crisper drawer for fresh things, which will almost inevitably become next week's pickup meal.