We love pasta. I’m not sure there’s another ingredient so useful for pulling together quick, delicious meals. It’s cheap. It cooks fast. It can be combined with an infinite number of other ingredients.
Not to mention that it’s fun to eat. And kid friendly.
Here are some of my favorite pasta recipes:
- Pasta Salad – This is one of my go-to meals. I serve it with grilled chicken. And last night we had it with Feta cheese. Scrumptious.
- Chicken and Broccoli Stuffed Shells
- Garden Rotini with Grilled Zucchini and Chicken – It uses homemade seasoned salt – yum!
- Penne Gorgonzola – Johnny Carinos copy cat recipe.
Now it’s your turn. Bring on the pasta recipes! Link up any recipe on your blog that uses pasta. It doesn’t have to be a recent post, just be sure to link directly to your recipe, not just the main page of your blog. I only ask that you include a link back to Eat at Home in your post. You can link directly to this post or use the button in the sidebar.
Winner announcement! – The winner of the Graeter’s Ice Cream giveaway is Rin who said, “I’d like to try Black Cherry, for sure. I’m a sucker for Cherry anything and my friend from Cincy tells me that Graeter’s ice cream is the best.” Thanks to everyone who entered. I wish I could send you all ice cream.
I love pasta! Oh. my. Can’t wait to add more pasta-based dishes to my ever-growing list of recipes to try 🙂
Pasta is always a hit in our house. I’m linking up an oldie but goodie, Chicken n’ Noodles.
Thanks for hosting Tiffany!
~Liz
Those chicken and broccoli stuffed shells look awesome! I just added that to my list of things to make! Thanks!
I have a really great go-to pasta recipe: Pasta with Spinach and Sausage
1 box rotini pasta
2 jars of sun dried tomato pesto
1 lb of mild italian sausage, sliced or out of castings crumbled
1 bag fresh spinach
1-2 cloves of garlic, chopped
olive oil
crumbled feta or shredded fontina
Boil 2 quarts of water for pasta. Cook pasta for 10 minutes. Drain and place in big mixing bowl.
In one frying pan, cook sausage for 8-10 minutes. Place sausage in mixing bowl with pasta.
Heat garlic and olive oil in a saute pan on medium low. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Add to pasta and sausage mixture. Add both jars of pesto and mix well. Top with either cheese and serve hot.
Serves 4.
ENJOY!
Here is my favorite pasta dish. It is a bit different, and you can keep the ingredients to make it on hand at all times. I developed this recipe from several I found on the web a few years ago. It can be relatively inexpensive if you buy the ingredients on sale and use “bonus” chicken. I have been able to purchase the shells for $1.99 a box and the Stove Top and Alfredo sauce, and cheese for $1.00 each. Two boxes of shells will make this recipe three times if you use 24 or so shells each time. It can be a bit different each
time by changing the vegetables. Since it is spring, cooked, chopped asparagus would be
good.
I will explain “bonus” chicken. When split chicken breasts are on sale, I purchase 2 or 3 packages. I bone the chicken myself, leave the skin on the breasts for protection and freeze them. I then cook the bones and make chicken broth. I take the meat off the bones, package in 2 c. packages with 1 c broth. When I make this recipe, I thaw the chicken and broth in the microwave. I deduct 1 c. from the amount of water called for in the preparation of the stuffing. Put the chicken and broth, rest of the water called for, celery, onion, pepper and vegetable in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and prepare as per package directions.
If you prefer not to use the packaged products, there is a homemade stuffing recipe here: http://freezeyourwayfit.blogspot.com/2011/02/clean-eating-stove-top-stuffing.html
For the Alfredo sauce you might try Tiffany’s sauce here: http://eatathome.wpengine.com/2009/01/fettucine-alfredo.html or this one: http://www.lynnskitchenadventures.com/2008/08/quick-and-easy-alfredo-sauce.html. Sorry, I don’t know how to make the links clickable. The two jars provide 3 1/2 cups of sauce. We like lots of sauce, you may decide you want less.
Chicken and Dressing Stuffed Shells Alfredo
24 Jumbo Shells, cooked according to directions and cooled
1/4 c. chopped celery
1/4 c. chopped onion
1/4 c. chopped red pepper
1 c. frozen peas, peas and carrots, chopped broccoli etc.
1 pkg. Stove Top Stuffing Mix or about 2 1/2 c. stuffing, prepared
2 c diced cooked chicken or 1 (10 oz.) can, drained
1/2 c. mayonnaise (if you don’t like mayonnaise, use yogurt or sour cream)
2 (16 oz.) jars prepared Alfredo sauce
1 to 2 c. shredded Italian or mozzarella cheese
Prepare stuffing mix according to package directions, adding celery, onion, red pepper and peas to the water called for and bring to a boil. Combine stuffing, chicken, mayonnaise and mix well. Stuff shells with chicken/stuffing mix using about 1/4 c. per shell. Place in a greased 9×13-in. baking dish. Pour Alfredo sauce over shells. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 min. Can be prepared ahead up to 48 hours (use glass baking dish and cover tightly with plastic wrap). Bake 1 hr. 15 min.
Note: The original recipes I found called for 2 cans of Cream of Chicken soup mixed with one can of water for the sauce and used cheddar cheese. So that would be another way to make this.
Add a green salad to this, and dinner is done. Enjoy
Well, now I see the links in my post have became clickable. Good. Tiffany, I forgot to say how much I have enjoyed this wonderful series. I have many, many new recipes I want to try and have many great blogs to visit. So “Thank You!, Thank You!”
Mmm, Pasta! A fave in our house! I linked up one of my husband’s guest posts on my blog with his Penne Perfection!
We tried crockpot zit (#8) for dinner tonight and it tastes great! I doubled the recipe and cooked it in a 5.5 qt. crockpot for four hours.