Archive for October 20th, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Baked Pasta
Baked Pasta
My wife and I grew up on the east coast and were lucky enough to have a section of Trenton called “The Burg” that had really great, small Italian restaurants on almost every corner. These were small storefronts or older homes turned into restaurants; the type where the grandmother did the cooking in the extremely small kitchen. Traveling for business for 20+ years, I always tried to find those interesting, character filled restaurants that reminded me of home.
There is a great Italian restaurant in Buffalo, New York called Chefs, that fits into the mold of the restaurants of the burg. At Chef’s the linen napkin had a button-hole in the top that allowed you to fasten it onto your shirt to avoid the business tragic sauce on the shirt syndrome. I haven’t been there for maybe 20 years but I still remember and recreate one of their specialties of the house, baked pasta.
This recipe takes a very simple meal, spaghetti, “gucci’s it up, by adding cheese and baking it in the oven. You go from “just get dinner over with” to “boy is this good” in about 7 minutes. What could be easier; more importantly what could be better. Napkins optional!
Baked Pasta
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Vegetarian Entrée |
| Meal: | Veggie – Little Italy (Theme Meal Plans) |
| 1 | lb | pasta, penne |
| 2 | Tb | salt, kosher |
| 3 | cup | tomato sauce |
| 1 | cup | cheese, mozzarella |
| 3 | Tb | cheese, romano, grated |
Cook pasta in a large pot of salted, boiling water and drain well. Using your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce or part of the spaghetti sauce recipe which appears on this site, mix sauce with the cooked pasta, and place in an oven-proof dish. Grate mozzarella cheese and sprinkle generously on top; finish with a sprinkling of the romano.
Bakes at 400 degrees for about 4-6 minutes or until it begins to brown.
Shown here using spaghetti.
1 comment October 20, 2008
