Who knew that shredded carrots could be entirely exciting in pasta sauce??? Mario Batali, that’s who. In the last issue of Lucky Peach I came across one of his recipes for pasta sauce. To it, he adds shredded carrots, which give the sauce some fun texture and subtle carroty flavor. I had some zucchini and threw that in as well. I didn’t have time to make his sauce so I just mixed the shredded veggies into a bottled sauce. Give it a try!
Macaroni and cheese is a dish that I drool over. The problem is that I don’t often have the time to make a big production out of it by melting the butter, adding flour, etc. I did, however, have on hand a box of whole wheat elbow macaroni in my pantry and some extra-sharp cheddar. So, I opted to make a very simple version of mac and cheese. A relative of mine makes it this way – with just pasta, cheese, milk, and pepper – and it is so good that I really don’t miss the added fat and calories of butter and flour. The cheese that goes into this dish has enough creaminess for me.
What you’ll need:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Cook the pasta to al dente. Drain and let it cool. While you’re waiting for it to cool, cut the cheese into blocks, or you can grate the cheese, whichever you prefer. Toss your pasta and cheese together, also adding 1/2 cup of milk, pepper, and paprika. Then, place it all into a 9×13 baking dish and cover it. 20 minutes later, your cheese will be fully melted and delicious looking. Add 1/2 cup of milk and mix everything around, making sure you evenly mix the cheese with the pasta. 10 minutes later, take off the cover and let the top brown for the last 15 minutes. You can also mix it around and add any more milk if the mixture looks like it’s drying out.
Adding the paprika really brought out the whole-wheat taste in the pasta. If you don’t want to enhance the whole-wheat taste, and are really just using the pasta as a vehicle for the cheese, then feel free to omit the paprika and certainly add more cheese.
I’ve had a box and a half of whole wheat lasagna noodles for some time now. They weren’t getting any younger just sittin’ there. The problem, or so I thought, was that I didn’t have any cheese. It turns out that cheese-less lasagna is pretty dang good. I had 2 small eggplants and some zucchini lying around as well so I used my mandolin and sliced them length-wise. With all fingers accounted for, I constructed the lasagna, layering the noodles with the eggplant and zucchini in between, just like I would if I had cheese on hand. And, I topped it off with sliced roma tomatoes.
It turned out fantastic. The creaminess of the eggplant isn’t exactly a perfect substitute, but I felt a little less guilty going for seconds knowing that I didn’t just eat my year’s allotment of saturated fats in one sitting. I also used a bottle of Trader Joe’s tomato basil marina that was in my pantry. Killing 2 birds with one stone – this is what I call spring cleaning.
Eat - Drink - Roam 