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Cheesy Pesto Pasta Bake

It’s been a while since I posted a new recipe, so I thought I’d post the recipe for the pasta dish I made for Elizabeth’s bachelorette party.  This is a trusty Rachael Ray recipe (love her), and you can find the original recipe HERE on the Food Network website.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 1 pound of your favorite pasta (I used penne)
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan in a slow stream
  • 3 large cloves garlic
  • 1/2 small to medium yellow onion
  • 1 (28-ounce) can crushed Italian tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup, 10 to 12 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 cup store bought basil pesto sauce
  • 1 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
  • 1/2 pound shredded mozzarella

Start by bringing a pot of water to a boil.  Salt the water and add your pasta.  And while you’re at it, preheat your broiler.

Next, finely chop the garlic,

And half of the onion.

Saute in a large skillet until soft and tender.

Next, add the crushed tomatoes to the onions and garlic.  The recipe says to use a 28 oz can, but I didn’t have one, so I used two 14 oz cans.  Same thing, right?

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Since it has already been established that I do NOT have a green thumb, I bought some fresh basil at the grocery store; but if you are like my mom and can pretty much grow anything, go ahead and use your own freshly grown basil!

Tear about 10 – 12 leaves (or 1/2 a cup) into small pieces and drop into your sauce.  Trust me, you’ll want to use fresh basil, not the dried stuff.  It’s SO worth it!

Stir the sauce around so that the basil wilts into the sauce.  Turn your heat down to low and let simmer for a few minutes.

Next, spoon your pesto into a medium bowl.  You can definitely make your own pesto, but I’m lazy, and store bought pesto seemed like the easier option.  Plus I was in a huge time crunch since I had to make this dish in pretty much less than half an hour.  I know….excuses, excuses.

Next add the ricotta cheese.  Now, I’ve used ricotta cheese before in lasagna and such, and it never really looked quite like this.  The ricotta I was used to was a lot more liquidy and not so stiff, but this is what I bought, so this is what I was gonna use.  Stir that around so that it’s completely combined.

Next add your parmesan cheese.  This isn’t quite 1/2 cup, but like I said….I was in a time crunch, and I didn’t feel like searching through the pantry for another bottle of cheese when this one ran out.

Drain your pasta and add to a baking dish.

Stir in your pesto/cheese mixture and make sure it completely coats the pasta.

Pour the tomato basil sauce over the pasta.

Sprinkle shredded mozzarella alllllllllll over.  Now….remember my time crunch?  By this time, I was already about 3 minutes late, and they live about 15 minutes away.  And I still had to stick this under the broiler for about 5-7 minutes, so that means, I didn’t have time to take a picture when it was all finished.  So just imagine that this has been under the broiler for 5-7 minutes and that the top is all nice and bubbly and golden brown.  Looks great, doesn’t it?!

This recipe got rave reviews at the party, so I know you’ll love it!

P.S.  I was 20 minutes late to the party.

Slacking

I’m so sorry that I haven’t posted something new in several days.  I’ve been super busy since about the middle of last week, and my blog has taken a backseat to the rest of my life, unfortunately.

It all started on Thursday.  I got my hair done at 12:00pm, and that took about 2.5 hours.  My roots were about an inch long, so it was definitely time for a touch up!  It was getting to the point where I had to wear hats every day.

After my hair appointment, I went to work, which is normal during the week; but at 5:00pm I met Elizabeth at The Streets of Indian Lake (a shopping center in town) and went shopping for different wedding items.  And, ok, ok, I bought a couple dresses too.

The next day (Friday) was work as usual, but I asked Steve if we could leave a little bit early so I could rush home to make a pasta dish for Elizabeth’s lingerie/bachelorette party that night.  I ended up being about 20 minutes late because of that dang pasta dish!  But it tasted pretty good, so I guess it was worth it.

That night, we went downtown to celebrate Elizabeth’s last couple weeks as a bachelorette, and we didn’t end up getting home until about 3:30am!  Steve had gone to Rustin’s house for a little guy’s get together while the girls were out, but sadly he was the last one left by the time we got home…..by a few hours.  I felt pretty bad about that, but he was pretty understanding, and waited for me at their house so we could drive home together.

Saturday and Sunday were another 2 full days of working on the Smoke House, and by the time we got home, I was too tired to even think about writing a blog post.

Monday was our first day at work that we were short one employee, so I was pretty busy taking over all her responsibilities, as well as setting up our new cash register.  We decided to get a cash register because we have been getting more and more walk in customers and the register will help us keep better track of cash transactions.

So here we are on Tuesday, and I finally have time to post a little something on my neglected blog.  I have several pictures from Elizabeth’s bachelorette party and a step by step tutorial on the pasta dish I made for the party that I still need to post.  So don’t worry!  More posts will be coming soon!!!

Just a Dream

Last night (which was probably more like this morning, since I always dream right before I wake up), I had the craziest dream about my dogs, Kaylee and Camelot….but mostly Camelot.  I don’t know about you, but I always have the most vivid dreams, and I always remember them pretty much every morning.  Steve never remembers his dreams, and he thinks that he doesn’t dream at all….but that’s obviously not true, because everyone dreams or we’d all go crazy (or so I’ve heard).  But every once in a while, I have a dream that is so vivid, that when I wake up I have to take a few seconds to check my surroundings and realize that it was in fact, just a dream.

Last night was one of those times.

The beginning of my dream started with me driving to pick up dinner at Panera.  Only, when I got there, the Panera was mysteriously turned into a McDonalds.  I spent a few minutes deciding what I could get at McDonalds that would be close to something I would get at Panera, and decided on a salad.

When I was on my way home, all of a sudden my car started beeping slowly.  As I drove on the beeping got faster and faster — almost like a heart rate monitor when someone’s heart rate goes up.  All of a sudden the beeping turned into one long beep (like when you flat line) and my car turned off.  Apparently I had run out of gas.

I was able to coast into an empty parking lot, and called Steve to bring me some gas (we have a 5 gallon gas can at home that we use for the lawn mower).  Suddenly, a white pickup truck pulled up and this weird old guy started trying to talk to me.  I can’t remember what he was saying, but I know that I was definitely scared of him.  And for some reason I was sitting on the ground with my back up against a wall instead of in my car….which is dumb.  Why would I not wait in my car with the doors locked?  Especially if there was a weird guy harassing me.

Anyway, the next thing I know, both of my dogs come running around the corner and sit next to me.  Camelot practically laid on top of me, basically protecting me from the bad man.  And I was wondering in my dream how on earth they got there.  We have a fenced in back yard, so unless they hopped over the fence, there is no way they’d somehow run away from our house.  And even if they did somehow get out, how did they know where I was?  I was over a mile away from home!

I called Steve again to see if he had brought them with him for some reason when he came to put gas in my car, but he said that he hadn’t even left yet because he couldn’t find the gas can.

So the dogs waited with me and protected me until Steve finally arrived and I was able to drive home.

But the dream wasn’t over!  When I got home, I saw that the wind had blown a huge hole in our backyard fence, which explains how the dogs got out.  And when I looked closer, I noticed that a huge black bear was in our yard! (Which doesn’t make sense either, because I’m sure there aren’t any black bears in Tennessee).

Somehow, Camelot had gotten back there with the bear and was fighting it!  I tried to yell at the bear to make him go away, and I clapped my hands really loudly, but still they kept on fighting.  Finally, the bear must have gotten tired and ran away.

I ran over to Camelot to check him for injuries, and really only saw some cuts and scratches.  But then, he turned his head toward me and I saw this huge, gaping claw mark running from the top of his head, through his eye and down through his lip.

That’s when I woke up.  And this morning, I had to hug Camelot for several minutes and tell him what a good boy he was for protecting his mommy from the scary man AND the huge black bear.  He didn’t know why I was hugging him and giving him love, he just knew that he liked it. 🙂  THE END.