When there's nothing in the fridge to be eaten...

I came home from work rather later than usual today. I'd say I was home at around 8 ish. The thing about being home at that time is that if you are going to cook, well it means that by the time you are finished cooking, you won't be having your dinner until 9 if you are lucky. I don't particularly like eating late because then I don't sleep that well.
So today when I opened the fridge I cursed myself for not planning my evening dinner any better.
Then again, it's not like there was no food around the house either. It's just there seemed to be nothing that could be cooked together: parsnips, carrots, pasta, rice, eggs, etc. You get the jist.
There were a few slices of parma ham hidden at the bottom of the fridge and I decided to use some of these. I had initially bought them to make pizza but making pizza from scratch at 8 would have meant dinner at around 10. Way too late for me although I am a bit of a night-owl. So I decided to kill two birds with the one stone. I will have pizza tomorrow evening because I prepared the tomato sauce tonight.
And I used the tomato sauce with pasta, celery and carrots, a few slices of parma ham along with a green salad. The beauty of it is that not only dinner for tomorrow evening is already of the way, but tonight's dinner only took me 20 minutes to prepare!
So here is an idea for a quick dinner:

Will feed three people and you will have tomato sauce left (you can freeze it or use it on pizza the following day for instance)

Tomato sauce:
- One carton of tomato passata
- One onion sliced
- Two cloves of garlic sliced
- One good pinch of sugar
- One good pinch of salt and some pepper
- A few leaves of basil chopped
- 1 tbsp of oil

Sauce for the pasta:
- Three carrots, sliced thinly if possible
- 1 celery stick thinly sliced
- 1 chilli sliced (deseeded if you don't like the heat, I kept the seeds though)
- 1 tbsp of oil

Other ingredients:
- 300 gr of pasta (I used short pasta)
- About 9 slices of parma ham

1. First, start with the tomato sauce: Slice the onion, the garlic, gently fry on medium-hot heat in a saucepan with a tablespoon of oil.
2. When slightly brown, add the passata, the basil, sugar, salt and pepper. Add half a glass of water and simmer gently for 7 minutes.

3. Start cooking your pasta in salted boiling water.

4. Slice your carrots, your celery stick. Gently fry on medium-hot heat in a frying pan for 5 minutes. When brown, add the sliced chilli and a little salt and pepper. After two minutes, put two laddles of the above tomato sauce into the frying pan and cook for 8 minutes. You might need to add a glass of water to it as you don't want your sauce to reduce too much, you just want to cook the carrots and celery a bit. (While this is happening, you can prepare a green salad to accompany your dish.)

5. Drain your pasta, pour them into the frying pan and mix well. Serve with slices of parma ham spread over the pasta on a plate.

Et voilà, nearly two dinners in one!
Tomorrow night, I will publish a post on my pizzas... See you then I guess!