What I like best about Italian cooking is that it doesn’t take a lot of fuss to make something particularly good to eat. I’m in a vacation home right now in Southern California. The kitchen is pretty well-outfitted for one of these places, but you don’t want to run to the store to buy a spice whenever you want to cook. That’s where Italian cooking really comes in handy. All you need is a can of tuna, some tomato sauce, olive oil, and garlic. With the pasta, that’s five ingredients. You can gussy it up, of course, but it’s good the way we prepare it, especially if you can get some Italian (or even Iranian) tuna in olive oil.
As your well-salted pasta water comes to a boil (it should be the saltiness of the sea—none of that “one teaspoon for five gallons” crap the food channel dingbats tell you). You heat a pan, add some olive oil and garlic. Let the garlic soften, then add a can of tuna (for two) and a few ounces of tomato sauce. Let it cook through while your spaghetti cooks. If it dries out, add some of that seasoned and starchy pasta water.
When the spaghetti is done, drain and toss in the pan with the sauce.
You’re done. No cheese. Variations? Add capers, chili flakes, lemon zest or all three.
Easy. You can make spaghetti al tonno in a vacation home kitchen, and it will fill you up at a cost that’s darn reasonable.