Pasta 101

This is my version of making good pasta. Since I've been getting a lot of free time and using it to experiment in the kitchen.
Firstly I never estimate anything. No measuring cups no tsp. etc. I know for a beginner this is pretty bad, but still. I call it "instinctive estimation". So first things first.
The ingredients would be:

• Water (try to take a little excess of this)
• the pasta of your choice
• vegetables (for mine I used carrots, capsicum, and beans)
• seasoning (oregano and green or black pepper preferably)
• Olive oil
• pasta sauce
• salt
  

So first take the water in a large container, add salt , add the pasta and cook the pasta in it for a while. After fifteen to twenty minutes check if the pasta is cooked , preferably by self tasting and softness checking)
Im all about time saving so till then keep chopping those vegetables. Carrots need to be pureed (cooked). So chop them first. Nice small cubes.
By this time the pasta would have been cooked. Be careful to ensure that it doesn't get over cooked or undercooked , the optimum here would be to endure the pasta is soft yet not gooey.
Drain the water using a drainer and put the pasta aside to dry for sometime. Next take to vegetables add a little cooking oil in the pan and toss those vegetables around while sprinkling seasoning . Mix properly. take the past in a big dry frying pan.About now , the pasta tries to stick together. Add olive oil and mix well. Don't add to much. As the pasta become too greasy.
Add the seasoned sauted vegetables and mix everything together well.
Next add pasta sauce, Now don't despair if the pasta become a bit too liquidy, tip the pan over and drain the excess liquid , or under desperate measures like what I went through, just put the entire pasta in water and this will drain the excess stuff.
After this mix well and taste, then its all left to you to estimate. What it needs in extra to suit ur taste buds or to suit the taste buds of the people you are catering to.

more on
Sautéing and Puréeing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saut%C3%A9ing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pur%C3%A9e