Lasagna isn't really my thing. I will happily eat it when others prepare it, but I've always found it to be sort of fussy and unappealing to make on my own (all that pasta pre-boiling and careful layering just left me cold). Besides, I always felt like you could get comparable flavors with a pasta bake - noodles tumbled together with garlicky red sauce, sauteed spinach and a carton of ricotta cheese and topped with a generous layer of mozzarella cheese has always been my favorite.
However, having seen the grilled veggie lasagna that Julie posted yesterday, I'm starting to rethink my previous anti-lasagna position. For one thing, the step-by-step pictures she took are really lovely and show off the rustic beauty of the grilled veggies. Her recipe also reminded me that you can use no-bake noodles, rendering one of my lasagna complaints moot. And lastly, seeing it done, it just doesn't look that difficult or fiddly. I may be a convert sooner, rather than later.
How about the rest of you? Are you a lasagna maker or more of a pasta bake person?
Here is the second baked pasta dish I made over the weekend (you can find the first one here). This one is more traditional, being that it uses sauteed onions, garlic and peppers. I made this one especially for the omnivores in the crowd, although I used turkey sausage instead of pork to keep the amount of fat a little lower. Especially since it used three different kinds of cheese.
The thing to remember about recipes like these is that you should feel free to make them your own. If you don't like peppers, leave them out. If you've got a friend who is allergic to ricotta cheese, use cottage or farmer's cheese instead. Feel like using three different kinds of cheese is sort of excessive? Cut out the parmesan. It's a technique more than an exact recipe and you can bend and shape it to your tastes.
For the last week or two, I've been feeling like my cooking mojo was off. It started with a sub-par batch of risotto. Then came the pizza dough that wouldn't rise and the dried cherry, pistachio and white chocolate chips that were inexplicably bitter. I was beginning to feel like I'd never cook successfully again. Until along came the baked penne pasta dish you see above.
Over the weekend I made two baked pasta dishes for a small dinner party (I'll post the recipe for number two tomorrow, as it was equally delicious). I realized that there were going to be some vegetarians in the bunch and so I plotted out two different sauces to accommodate the various eating styles. This one is the non-meat version and it was so good. It combines sauteed shallots, artichoke hearts, baby spinach, fresh ricotta cheese, pesto, whole wheat penne and fresh mozzarella. It got rave reviews and happily the leftovers have done nothing but improve while hanging out in my fridge. Follow the jump for the exact recipe.
While I don't have kids or a family yet, I do have lots of friends and on occasion I've found myself needing to feed a crowd. When that happens, I almost always turn to the pasta bake. Easier than lasagna but with similar appeal, I've yet to have anyone turn down this medley of pasta, cheese, tomato sauce and spinach (although the vegans, lactose intolerant and gluten-free folks would have to take a pass). I always make it without meat in case a vegetarian turns up, but you could easily stir some browned beef or sausage into the sauce. This is perfect if your kids have friends coming over to spend the night or you want to make something that will provide leftovers. It's also a hit at potlucks.
On nights when you don't really feel like cooking, pasta is always an easy fallback. Now that people seem to be less terrified of having a few carbs in their diets, pasta is slowly returning to its position as a pantry staple. It only takes a few minutes to cook and you can make an infinite number of sauces, from 5-minute light tomato sauces to rich, slow-cooked ones. If you have an extra few minutes in your evening, it doesn't take too much more work to turn a regular bowl of pasta into a comforting baked pasta dish, with an oozy topping of cheese than gets browned and ever so slightly crusty on top. Just about any baked pasta dish is a welcome meal on a cold winter day.
10 More Dirty Restaurant Tricks
5 Things You Didn't Know About Turducken
10 Catchiest Food Jingles We Love to Hate
