Right out of the box

In my mom's day, it was common for ladies to turn to the boxes of their favorite mixes for new recipes to thrill their snarly kids and bored husbands. Sometimes it even worked. The recipes got passed around, became instant classics, turned into the staples of community cookbooks, then the recipes made it to the next logical step: A packaged mix or frozen dinner. Then out came cookbooks harking back to the "original recipes" and how to make the dish "from scratch."

Then we started to cook fresh and the recipes collected dust.

Today, as I emptied an open box of linguine into my pasta jar, I spied a recipe on the package for linguine with tuna, olives and capers. OK, that sounded pretty good. And it was.

Here's to a new generation of "ripped from the box" recipes.

De Cecco's Linguine with Tuna, Olives and Capers
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
1 pound linguine

Salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup of black olives, pitted and finely chopped
1 1/4 tablespoon capers
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Pepper 

1 small can tuna, shredded with fork

Instructions
Cook the pasta for 11 minutes in boiling salted water. In the meantime, sauté in olive oil the olives, capers and garlic. Add a few tablespoons of the boiling pasta water, then put in the parsley and some ground pepper. Let it cook for a few minutes, then remove from heat and add the tuna. Drain the linguine and put in a serving dish. Add the sauce, mix well and serve.