2.14.2010

Other People's Kitchens

Had a great Valentine's weekend in Fort Wayne. I spent Friday night at Mom's, where she and I had a good time making my current favorite meal... cardamom chicken, saag paneer, and cuke-mint yogurt with pitas. Yum! I forgot to add the salt to the saag paneer, though, so it was not as tasty as it should have been. :(

Saturday morning I had coffee and donuts at Laura's house real quick before she had to go to work; that was a fun way to start a day that ended in a different kitchen-- Aunt Deb's. I went over and made a pasta bake dinner, and she made a salad and a Rachel Ray recipe for garlic bread. And of course we had Uncle Nick's birthday cake, which was sugar cream pie. Although I had my camera in my purse all weekend, I took no pictures. I guess you'll just have to take my word that this following recipe will produce a meal.

Pasta Bake
a box of penne or ziti or whatever pasta you like
one large or two regular jars of your favorite spaghetti sauce
a stick of pepperoni
an onion, chopped
a green pepper, chopped
a hunk of mozzarella cheese

Heat oven to 350. Boil and drain pasta. Saute veggies in a bit of oil on medium for about 5 minutes, until they begin to soften. Cut up the pepperoni into small, bite-sized chunks. Combine pasta, veggies, and pepperoni in a 9x13 pan, then pour some sauce over and mix the sauce in. Pour in as much sauce as you like, and you can freeze the rest of the sauce, if you have leftover. Cut mozz cheese into slices, and lay on top of the pasta (you can use shredded if you want, but I just like to use the block of mozzarella). Bake for 20 minutes or so, until the cheese is melted. Keep it in 10-15 minutes longer if needed to get it nice and browned, or if you're hungry and don't want to wait anymore, finish it off under the broiler for a minute or two.
(This is a picture I found online when I did a google search for 'pasta bake.' This is pretty much what it looks like when I make it, but this one looks to have ground beef in it instead of pepperoni. Also, the cheese is really piled on in this pic. Tastes good, but I usually don't use quite that much cheese.)

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