Pasta bake was a firm favourite for Tom and I when we lived alone. (Sigh. Not too long to go now.) It started with uncooked pasta + pasta sauce from a jar + LOTS OF CHEESE in the oven. And was delicious. It developed into cooked pasta + homemade pasta sauce + fried/grilled sausage chunks + LOTS OF CHEESE in the oven. And was even more delicious. In our second year of university we cooked it at least twice a week, which meant I ate it at least four times a week. There were a hell of a lot of leftovers.
So, yesterday I made it for eight with a sauce that was basically this tomato soup, but doubled, of course.
1.5 packets of short pasta, each 500g. Boiled for about fifteen minutes on a medium-high temperature without salt. Several handfuls of broccoli were added after about ten minutes.
Sauce: 2 chopped onions, 2 minced garlic cloves, fried and mixed with as much tomato puree as I could squeeze out of the tube, and a big sprinkling of an Italian herb mix. 1200g of passata plus some water added and stirred on a medium-low heat until simmering. Salt + pepper. The baking soda & milk mix was added as the pasta and broccoli were drained, and stirred on a medium-high heat until the foam dissipated. (Someone commented that it smelt like Heinz tomato soup! Yay!)
Pasta broccoli mix divided into one full and one half-full glass bowl. Sauce divided accordingly. Hell of a lot of cheese sprinkled on each.
The full pasta bowl served very slightly under-average sized portions to all 8. 6 went back for seconds, leaving a portion that would feed my sister (not much) as leftovers.
Delicious, but needed a tiny bit of extra flavouring. Sausages would also not have gone amiss!
