Anyway, between shushing The Baby and having her blatantly ignore my efforts at maternal comforting there was a show about cheese. I don't remember the name of the show, or the chef that was hosting it; we can thank The Baby for that.
Chef made this wonderful pie out of spaghetti and cheese, real comfort food. So me being me, I jotted down what I could all the while trying to keep the pen out of The Baby's mouth and the paper out of The Baby's grabby little hands.
Here's what I ended up with, and I must say it's a winner. I really wish I could remember the show so I could recommend you guys watch it.
You'll need:
- Big handful of Spaghetti, about a pound
- 1 1/2 cups grated Cheese (I used a mixture of lactose free cheddar, Parmesan and a bit of regular sharp cheddar, mostly for some colour)
- Olive Oil
- A bag of fresh Spinach
- 6 or so fresh Mushrooms, sliced
- Sea Salt
- Pepper
- 1-2 cloves Garlic, smashed
- 4-5 Eggs
- 1 Tbsp of your favourite herb.
Get some salted water boiling in a pot large enough to accommodate your noodles. Once the water is on a hard boil, twirl in the noodles. As they soften, they'll sink down. At which point give them a bit of a stir so that they don't stick to the bottom of your pot.
Meanwhile, put 1 Tbsp olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Toss in your sliced mushrooms, add some salt and pepper and the garlic. As they start to soften, add your spinach. It may be a good idea to do this in parts depending on the size of your pan. If you have a giant pan, then by all means toss in the lot. If you have a regular pan then put in half, once that wilts down a bit add the rest. Reduce the heat and stir occasionally.
Remove from heat when the spinach is as wilted as you desire.
In a large bowl, whisk up your eggs and add the cheese. Put in your herb of choice, I used basil because my Mom gave me a basil plant and I love it. Add a pinch of salt and some pepper, just as you would normally season your eggs.
Once the spaghetti is done, drain and rinse in cold water. This will stop the cooking process and will cool the noodles so that they don't instantly cook the eggs. The noodles should be lukewarm to the touch.
Mix your noodles in the eggy-cheesey mixture thoroughly.
Heat some oil in a pan on medium heat. Once hot put about half the noodle mixture in an even layer inside the pan. Put your filling mixture in the centre and spread out evenly. Leave about an inch of space around the outer edge, so that the pie will close properly.
Put the remaining spaghetti mixture over top and spread out so that you have completely covered the spinach and mushrooms.
Let this cook slowly.
It's pretty thick, you don't want the bottom to burn before the middle is warm; so keep the heat at medium low.
You can check the bottom with a big flipper, once it starts to get crispy you'll need to flip it over. There are a couple ways you can do this. If you can flip omelettes and veggies, then you may be able to just flip this. I can't really do that, even a little bit, so I took a lightly oiled plate and turned it over, then just slid the giant pasta pie back into the pan so the other side can brown.
At least that is what I was planning on doing. I used a pan that was bigger than my plate, and therefore the pie was bigger than my plate. So The Man helped and sort of toss-flipped it. It was really close to falling apart and me getting upset, but it worked out.
After the other side is browned, you can slide it right out of the pan and onto a cutting board. Cut up in wedges like a pie and serve with a side of greens.
You can use any kind of mixture you want. I wouldn't really recommend anything saucy, as it may be too runny at the flip-it-over stage, but you could use slices of pepperoni or other veggies. You could add more cheese, you could shred some cooked chicken and put that in the middle. Basically if it's good on pasta (but not too watery) it'll be good in here.
That's my taste on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment