Cheesy Baked Pasta

Hello Dear Reader,

Mmmm, Pasta, Cheese, Basil, Tomato and more Cheese! What a fabulous combination, delicious and easy to make and bake and a delight to eat. It makes a huge quantity also, so if you are expecting a crowd for dinner this would be ideal. It reheats beautifully and is abundantly filling and warming. Gosh I do go on don't I? It's just so delicious. I have used orecchiette pasta, as it is a small but robust pasta, like little cups, perfect to fill up with the simple tomato sauce.

Ingredients for Cheesy Bake Pasta, clockwise from top right-

3 x 400 gram cans of diced tomatoes, 3 cups grated mozzarella plus 1&1/2 cups grated parmesan, mixed together, 1 x 375 gram container of ricotta (I used the Aldi brand), 2 cloves of garlic, grated on a microplane, 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried chilli flakes, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, a good handful of basil, roughly chopped, 1 x 500 gram packet of small pasta of choice, salt and pepper to taste, 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar plus 2 tablespoons of olive oil (not pictured)

Firstly, cook pasta in the usual way and set aside until needed, keeping back 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Preheat oven to 200 C

In a bowl, mix in the 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the ricotta and season well with salt and pepper, set aside until needed

In a large saucepan, heat a little oil on medium heat and sauté the garlic and chilli for about 1 minute or until fragrant 

Now add the cans of diced tomatoes, brown sugar and balsamic vinegar, bring to a gentle simmer and let blip away for 15 minutes or so to reduce

Now add the cooked pasta and reserved pasta cooking water, it will look a little watery at this stage but it will be just perfect by the end of baking

Roughly chop the basil

In a large greased casserole dish, ladle in half the pasta and sauce mixture, top with ricotta mixture and half the chopped basil

Now ladle over the other half of the pasta and sauce

Sprinkle over the combined grated cheeses and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden and bubbly

Once finished baking, sprinkle over other half of chopped basil and maybe another grating of parmesan when serving. I served ours with some lovely sautéed silverbeet.

Full of flavour and filling enough even for the meat-a-saurasus’s in your family. 

Have a lovely day,

💗Fi

One Year Ago-No Blog Post Today

Two Years Ago-Stay Home=Get Stuff Done

This is another sterling recipe from Mel over at "Mels Kitchen Cafe" as always I have tinkered with the original recipe, adding, subtracting and converting the quantities and ingredients of the original recipe