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Saturday, May 19, 2007

Sneak in a little spinach....

...with this yummy pasta bake. If, like me, you have a few spinach-phobic members in your family, this pasta bake might be a good one to try. The smoked mozzarella is the dominate flavor, while the spinach, though plentiful, plays a more minor taste role. My husband and oldest son enjoyed it quite a bit, but my youngest wasn't so easily fooled - he still wasn't crazy for the spinach. Frozen spinach does tend to clump and it's a bit stringy, so I think next time I would consider pureeing it with the marinara sauce first to create a smoother, more evenly distributed sauce.

Smoked Cheese Pasta Bake

I used Barilla Plus for this dish and it worked quite well. My only gripe? The penne box is only 14.5 ounces, instead of 16. I don't know if their Penne Plus was always 14.5 ounces or if they have downsized, but it's annoying just the same. I wish companies would stop doing this! Recipes are often written based on commonly available sizes and it SO annoying when companies downsize or produce boxes that are smaller than the standard size - it messes with recipe proportions. And 1.5 ounces less pasta is almost one whole serving less per box.

In any case, this recipe was a winner for us - pretty easy to put together, though it did use a fair amount of pots/pans/dishes (one to cook the pasta, one to heat the sauce, one to mix the cheese and sour cream, and one to bake it in).

7 comments:

  1. I had this recipe marked to try in my magazine but never got around to make it. Thanks for reminding me! I love the flavors that smoked cheese imparts to pasta dishes, yours by the way looks great, really yummy!!
    Ana

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  2. Ana - Yes, I need to cook with smoked cheese more often. But you have to be careful since they can take over. And thanks - it's kind of hard to make cooked spinach look good!

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  3. That looks gorgeous! I love smoked cheese, but unfortunately, it is quite rare to find any here in Switzerland...

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  4. Rosa - Interesting since Switzerland is known for its cheeses!

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  5. Alysha - Just an FYI, your comment function is turned off on todays (Sunday May 20th) post. It has been happening a lot with mine as well... I don't know if something is wrong with blogger or what, but it is truly aggravating!

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  6. Joe - That's odd. Thanks for the heads up. I must say that Blogger has been pretty trouble-free since the switch, so I guess they were due for something...... ;)

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  7. Joe - All fixed. I turned them back on - though I'm sure I didn't turn them off to begin with. I'll have to make sure to check when I publish from now on........

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