Food from the heart
Do you know what type of pasta I love?
Trick question. I love all pasta.
Ok, this one really isn’t a trick question: Do you know what type of pasta I really love to make?
Answer: The type that requires just a few delicious ingredients and takes about 13.2 minutes to make, water-boiling time included.
Remember when I teased you with this photo on Instagram and Facebook?
I know, it was mean to make you wait so long for the recipe. But trust me, this one was well worth the wait.
I honestly wasn’t sure if I would be able to successfully recreate Velveeta Shells and Cheese without all of the suspicious ingredients (maybe you don’t find it suspicious that you can keep an open package of Velveeta in your fridge for over a year without it going bad…but I sure do). I have some pretty strong childhood memories connected to the stuff – many an evening was spent at my best friend’s house, eating shells and cheese and watching trashy reality TV.
Sometimes I cook to the seasons: fruits, veggies, holiday-appropriate dishes.
Sometimes I cook to my cravings: pasta, bread, more pasta, potatoes, more bread.
Occasionally, I get the chance to do both: Green Pasta Salad.
Has your grocery store been stocking fresh English peas? Trader Joe’s has had them in stock, and I’ve been taking advantage of them because I know they won’t stick around for long. I love the little jewels: they barely need to be cooked and are sweet as candy.
Too weird? Maybe. But still true.
Remember earlier this week when I told you to hang on to your sloppy joe leftovers? Now you find out why!
Growing up, my mom would often make sloppy joes for dinner one night, and then the next night would turn the leftovers into spaghetti sauce. This is a great way to re-purpose leftovers – it is quick, easy, can be done ahead of time if needed, freezes well, and keeps you from eating exactly the same thing multiple nights in a row!
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On the list of Things I Don’t Understand in This World – and it’s a long list, to be sure – are two things (that come to mind at this moment):
1.) Why I just typed this whole post and a WordPress error prevented it from saving. Not that I’m complaining or anything. Oh wait…yes I am.
2.) People who are not driven by food.
Seriously. If you can’t be rewarded with a cookie, I don’t get you. You don’t think that a great meal can redeem a truly awful day? That’s not even real. I can’t bribe you with pasta? Not even pasta in a creamy mascarpone sauce tossed with lots of smokey sausage and fresh broccoli? I’m pretty sure you’re not actually a human being.
Mind. Boggled.
I mean, let’s be real, you could probably bribe me to do just about anything with a big bowl of pasta, and right now, this is the pasta I’d want you to bribe me with.
Mascarpone cheese is a soft, sweet Italian cream cheese. It is most often used in dessert-type applications, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that, when mixed with some lemon juice, zest, and a lot of fresh black pepper, it makes an incredible cream sauce for pasta.
To make this even better – as if it isn’t good enough already – this is a no-cook sauce at its finest. It really doesn’t get any quicker or easier than this. I was able to pull this whole meal together in about 30 minutes, and that’s only because I had to stop and photograph everything. If you’re a normal person without the compulsion to post everything you make on the Internets, we’re talking 20 minutes. Done.
Dinner is served.
