u/Merci_____

I pretty regularly get stuff from the food bank and one of the most common things I get is pasta (generally spaghetti) and before now my go-to way to season it would be just put a bunch of butter in there as well as a bunch of pepper, but eating the same way got old really quick, so last night I experimented and tried to make a pasta base from a little butter, a bunch of the pasta water and a little milk. I added an Italian herb blend and a bunch of garlic powder(because it is cheap) to make an easy garlic sauce and I really liked it!

So now I'm trying to come up with more things I could do but I'm running into some hurdles. I'm really not a fan of tomatoes as a flavor base and can really only enjoy it if it has meat to go with it which I don't always have access to.

Garlic is great. I like Garlic.

I am partial to pesto, never really grew up eating it and have only had it for the first 2 times in my life this past year.

I love Alfredo, but OH MY LORD is cheese expensive.

I tried looking up ideas online but a lot of the recipes I've found aren't too helpful. What I would love to do is make the sauce as I've learned to but switch out the garlic with some other stuff if I want some variety.

What could I use?