Hellobee Boards

@mrbee: baked Mac n cheese? Elbows?

Ziti is the main "baked pasta dish." You can do so many things with it - sausage, spinach. That and macaroni and cheese, of course!

Manicotti and stuffed shells are in the same realm as lasagna - they would require some slicing before eating.

You can find recipes for baked spaghetti too.

I am also not sure what you're looking for because everything does usually get mixed together?

I love baked spaghetti! It was one of the few American dishes my mom cooked growing up.

Cannelloni? I just made some today. You have to parboil the noodles, but then you bake it and follow up with a quick broil to crisp the top. They're really yum. I made Italian sausage and butternut squash ones with a sage bechamel for supper tonight.

Ok, here we go, just off the top of my head:

Vegetable pasta ideas:
tiny shells with peas (begin by boiling chicken stock instead of water for the pasta, cook pasta until it's almost done, add peas directly into the water and cook until they're bright green. drain, but reserve the water. Return to pot, season to taste and serve the pasta with a ladle full of the broth.

Pasta with broccoli: start by cooking the broccoli to your desired level of doneness. I like it rather mushy, so I let it go a bit longer than I would for it as a side dish. In the meantime, cook your pasta. Drain and add it to the cooked, drained broccoli. Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. For adults and kids that like it, serve with ground black pepper.

Zucchini parmesan: instead of eggplant, slice some zucchini on the bias so you get nice big pieces. Salt and squeeze out the water. Toss in a bit of seasoned flour, then pan fry until just browned. Drain on paper towels. My Nona takes these zucchini and tosses it with cream, parmesan cheese and cooked short pasta. My mom layers the zuchhini like lasagna noodles, with sauce, mozzarella and sometimes ziti and bakes it off in the oven. I prefer this to eggplant parm!

Butternut squash: peel and dice half of a butternut squash. Saute in olive oil and seasonings to your taste. Add a splash of chicken stock to help it become a sauce. I usually mash a few pieces of the squash, but you could also puree the whole thing and use it like tomato sauce. Serve with pasta and parm cheese. You can really use any vegetable in this preparation, sometimes I even grate in a zucchini if I have one that's about to rot before I can get to it in a salad.

Zucchini meatballs are another favorite of mine...shred zucchini, place in a bowl with an egg, some breadchrumbs, parm cheese, salt and pepper. Form into balls and refridgerate to let them set. Fry or bake as you would meatballs. You can also put in some ground beef/pork/veal if you want, they're equally delicious. Sometimes I make them as patties instead of balls.

Eggs: classic carbonara (even Italians don't agree, so this is what I consider classic): in a measuring cup, beat 2 whole eggs plus the yolks of two more eggs. Add 2 glugs of cream and beat. Set aside. In a frying pan, cook some bacon, cut into small pieces. Boil and drain your pasta, put the pasta back in the cooking pot. Add the bacon and eggs, and stir well. The residual heat of the pasta cooks the eggs, but if you're serving to kids and you want to be extra careful, turn the burner and keep stirring the pasta until the eggs start to look scrambled. Sprinkle with parm cheese and serve

Beans: Drain cooked cannellini beans. I also remove the skin of the beans by rubbing gently under cold running water. Add the beans to a saute pan and cook gently with some chicken stock. Season as desired, you could add some tomatoes here, if the kids tolerate them. If not, leave them out. Once the beans are nice and soft, puree them until smooth. Serve with any kind of pasta you like, long or short.

garbanzo beans can get the same treatment, or they can be cooked in a brothy tomato sauce and served with a short pasta, like ditalini. It is more of a soup than a pasta dish, if that makes sense.

@looch: Who knew you were this goldmine of pasta recipes?!?!

@looch: Haha well thank you! I try to sort of avoid pasta for my own diet but my son is on an all-pasta plan right now so these will be good options for us!

@looch: I made the carbonara and LO loved it!

This is a good veggie-filled recipe:
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/09/baked-orzo-with-eggplant-and-mozzarella/

But baked ziti is my fave

@looch: Zucchini Parm! My DH also wants a linguine with white wine clam sauce.

@mrbee: I bought some from Trader Joe's! Heavy cream!

@mrbee: yay! I use heavy cream.

None but I just got DH this pasta & cheese class for xmas and I'm SO EXCITED!!!

"Few things are more delicious and simple than fresh pasta. The good news is it’s surprisingly easy to make at home with a quick lesson in technique. Then there are the sauces. What don’t you pair with pasta?! In this class, State Bird Provisions’ Forrest Smith will teach you to make two types of pasta dough, and four recipes: one hand-rolled, one cut and two stuffed. On the menu: Butternut and mascarpone cappelletti with brown butter, sage, hazelnuts and lemon, tagliatelle with bolognese sauce and a heap of Parmigiano Reggiano, hand-rolled cavatelli with crescenza and shaved black truffle, chard and prosciutto ravioli with taleggio and mushroom ragu. And then at the end of class, we’ll enjoy the fruits of our labor, together"

@autumnlove: I do use canned, the key is you need an extra bottle of clam juice.
@mrbee: love the photo!glad they ate.