3/9/07 | Leftovers: Baked Pasta
[ Currently Eating: Chicken Mushroom Omlette ]

Happy Friday. One of my favorite things to do with leftover tomato based pasta or spaghetti is to make a baked pasta casserole out of it. Pretty simple, just take your leftovers and warm them up slightly. You can add stuff to it if you want, like mushrooms, onions, carrots, meats etc… but it works best if those items are already cooked. The reason is so you don’t have to bake it as long. You could bake it longer, but since the pasta is already cooked it can get a bit mushy.
Then you just dump the whole thing into an ovenproof casserole, layer some type of cheese on top (I used mozzarella here). Pop it in the oven at like 350 degrees. I like to cover it w/ aluminum foil, until you’re almost ready to take it out. That way the cheese browns nicely but doesn’t completely burn. You can also put it under the broiler to get the cheese nice and bubbly very quickly.

I’m not sure how long I baked this one. It can’t be longer than 20-25 minutes though. Yummy, cheesey goodness.








I can’t remember if I’ve already had a Udon Noodle leftovers post. But in any case it’s worth revisiting again because it’s one of my favorite type of leftovers. The basic idea is to use up any sort of “meat-ish” leftovers from the day before, including but not limited to fried and roast chicken, fish cutlets, roast pork, hardboiled eggs, lunchmeat, sliced up steak, mixed veggies. You boil up some udon (or soba, ramen, chinese white noodles or even spaghettini) and make some sort of clear stock consisting mainly of water, sweet mirin wine, soy sauce and instant hon-dashi (fish broth powder - a subsitute for the more authentic way which involves dried kelp and katsuo fish flakes).





