Last night we had pasta. It was one of those meals where it is the day before I do my grocery shopping so I make what I call "Garbage Pail Pasta" from whatever leftovers are in the fridge. I call it garbage pail pasta because if it doesn't go in the pasta, it will end up in the garbage pail. Not to mean that we're eating rubbish...just veggies that may be on their last leg (if they had legs). Don't let the name fool you, some of our best pasta meals have been a Garbage Pail Pasta. Last night our larder brought forth spinach, red onion, yellow pepper, zucchini and a bit of goat cheese as well as some Asiago cheese. I melted the cheeses together with a cup of fat-free half-n-half, plus a half of a jar of marinara for the pasta sauce.
It was quite good so there wasn't much left. Too much to throw out but not enough for another meal. I tucked it into a zip-loc baggy for lunch the next day...only I never got to it...In fact I got back from the grocery store so late I decided to use the leftover pasta for our dinner. To stretch it out, I added to it a bag of microwavable cauliflour (microwaved on high for 3 minutes), as well as one can of cheddar cheese soup, plus the other half of the jar of marinara sauce I didn't use last night. Stirred it all together and put it into a casserole dish - topped it with a few slices of smoked gouda and baked it at 350-degrees for 25 minutes.
Tip: Adding cooked cauliflour and a can of cheddar soup to a leftover pasta dish works beautifully - especially for odd shaped pastas (kind of noticible in spaghetti dishes). The cauliflour makes a great "mock pasta" and it lightens up the dish without drastically changing the flavor. Adding the can of undiluted cheddar soup stretches out the sauce and the cheddar flavor compliments most any sauce you add it to. This little trick doubles the amount of food you have on hand. It's a nice trick to have up your sleeve if extra people pop-in on a leftover pasta night.
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