Baked pasta – seriously??

I know that for a lot of folks the weather this week has been an absolute scorcher. But here in San Diego, we’ve kind of been experiencing the opposite (but not at all severe) phenomenon…it’s actually been a bit cold and blustery. In fact, I nearly turned the car around as I was taking my kids out to the Wild Animal Park – the fog was dense and drizzly on the way out there and my duo are still pretty little. Fortunately, the sky cleared up and we had a blast with the flamingos, meerkats and gorillas.

The brisk, gray weather put me in the mood for a good spinach lasagna, using the basil pesto I recently made. The recipe, from the back of a package of shredded cheese, uses no-boil noodles so it was actually easy to prepare on a weeknight. Although you can’t really see it in the photos, the pesto is prominent throughout the lasagna layers and full of flavor. There’s a fair amount of spinach in there as well so you can feel good about getting your veggies in.

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I’m an Auntie! My sister and her husband welcomed their first child, a baby boy, earlier this week (with a rather quick labor for a first child, I might add – just 6 hours!) and we’re all overjoyed. They just brought him home from the hospital yesterday, so now the real fun begins. The “new guy” is just 11 weeks younger than my own little man – our family holiday gatherings will forever have a new “energy” with these two little boys running around!

My nephew is actually among a huge wave of births going on among my friends. There have been at least eight new babies since October (three just in the last week) and another five or six friends are due before June. It’s incredible! Everyone gives each other a lot of support, which is especially appreciated in those early days when you’re a zombified mess from lack of sleep. A number of fantastic ladies brought over homemade meals after I had my son in December and I’m excited to have the opportunity to “pay it forward”.

Which brings me to baked pasta…and this wonderful Shrimp with Orzo recipe, from inside the wrapper of a can of crushed tomatoes.

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Once upon a time, years ago, we had a good friend over for dinner. It was the first time we’d ever hosted her so I wanted to roll out the red carpet, so to speak, with a delicious, hearty pasta carbonara. I’d never made it before, but it was pasta – how hard could it be?

And then I got to the last step where I was to add the sauce made of cheese, heavy cream and eggs. And serve.

Ummm…did this recipe get cut off? It wants me to serve this tossed in raw egg? I’m not gonna do that! That’s not safe! Not to mention disgusting! I’ve gotta serve something right now. Aaaahh…what do I do??!

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Is there anything more homey than a big ol’ broccoli casserole? Perhaps it’s a sign of my “settling down”, now that I’m married with two kids and live in the suburbs (when did this happen?) but I’ve rediscovered casseroles in the past year or so. You’ll almost never see one on a restaurant menu but so many of us grew up with them on our dinner tables at home. When that shallow 13 x 9″ dish comes out of the oven, with errant strands of cheese baked onto the sides, I just know I’m in for a treat.

I’d actually describe this casserole as “mac & cheese with broccoli”.  Steamed broccoli is tossed with spiral-y fusilli pasta in a creamy cheddar cheese sauce, topped with Parmesan and baked to bubbly deliciousness.  I’m pretty sure I found this recipe on the side of a package of broccoli florets, although unfortunately I forgot to save enough of the original package to know for sure. Two good things I do know: 1) it tastes great alongside ham and 2) even a two-year-old will eat it.

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When I assemble a lasagna – or any layered dish, really – it feels a bit like an art project. Like a pasta-based mosaic, where you thoughtfully arrange all the individual components in such a way that when it all comes together you have something exciting to behold. It’s almost therapeutic.

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Rich, golden spinach-bacon macaroni and cheese is kind of like having a little angel and a little devil on each shoulder. It’s decadent for sure, but the spinach relieves just a touch of the guilt.

This was a rather simple recipe, from the back of a pouch of Kraft cheddar cheese, but the flavors were anything but basic. There’s no added seasoning whatsoever to this dish – all of the rich flavor comes from the ingredients themselves. The roux for the cheese sauce starts from the leftover bacon drippings, distributing a gentle bacony flavor throughout the pasta. The cheddar is both sharp and buttery and the parmesan is salty and a little nutty, so the combination is pretty robust and complex. And aside from a welcome color contrast, the spinach adds a nice herbiness to the mix.

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I’ve seen other pasta dishes that are similar to this one, with thinly sliced caramelized onions intertwined with spaghetti. It’s almost as if they’re in camouflage, their lithe lankiness assimilating amongst the pasta.  My husband, alas, is no fan of onions so I usually end up choosing recipes where they’re not too prominent. But then I thought about that Jessica Seinfeld cookbook where she hides butternut squash in mac & cheese so the kids won’t know they’re eating vegetables. This recipe sounded so enticing and the onions had a rather stealth presence…perhaps my better half would enjoy the dish so much he wouldn’t mind?

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