Have I mentioned that I’m not the best planner-aheader? I was all set to make a vegetarian version of this Easy Pasta Bake with Tomato, Mozzarella & Prosciutto from The Kitchn tonight. When I got started I realized that the tomato sauce it calls for, Marcella Hazan’s Famous, would take 45 minutes, and I just didn’t have that much time.
My solution was to make a no-bake version of the dish, and it came out pretty well, in a messy, cheesy sort of a way. Shane called it “a delicious, cheesy dish,” and had seconds.
What I did was this: I started the Marcella sauce, which really is remarkably good for something so easy and with so few ingredients, and put the water on to boil. About 30 minutes into cooking the sauce I put the pasta in. Meanwhile I grated 1 cup of mozzarella, I thought the 2 cups that the recipe calles for would be too much for a no-bake version, and it would have been. Then I chopped the fresh mozzarella. When the pasta was cooked and drained, the sauce was also done. I added the pasta to the sauce pot and mixed in the cheeses. All was done in 45 minutes flat.
We also had a fennel, apple, dill and caper salad (with Rita’s Dressing, naturally). This week’s csa box is officially depleted.
