Another riff on pasta, tomatoes and pesto

Just to show that the current leftovers jag is still in full swing today I managed to rustle up another pasta dish with the remains of Friday's feast and a few other odds and ends from the salad drawer.

In effect it was a double pasta sauce. I fried a sliced onion and red pepper for about 7-8 minutes until they were beginning to brown then stirred in a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, a tablespoon of tomato paste and a chopped tomato. I left it bubbling away while I cooked about 200g of Mafalda corta pasta with a handful of green beans, adding a few sugar snap peas towards the end of the cooking time.

I spooned off a couple of tablespoons of the pasta cooking water into the tomato mixture (a good trick - thickens the sauce), drained the pasta and vegetables then returned them to the pan and stirred in a tablespoon of olive oil and a good dollop of the leftover pesto from last week. I chucked a few leftover basil leaves into the tomato sauce then served up the pasta and beans with the tomato sauce on top. Could have added more parmesan but simply ground over some seasalt and black pepper. A cheap, simple lunch for two that looked a great deal sexier than its unpromising ingredients . . .