Pantry Pasta

Tonight, I taught Kelsie how to make a simple staple dish to use leftover vegetables and cheeses with ingredients you'll already have on hand in the pantry.  She's already coming up with a combo that sound delicious!

Here's what we did tonight, and I'll include info on how easy it is to adapt to whatever ingredients you want to use.

Pantry Pasta
8 oz. of your favorite pasta - we used radiatori - the shape helps scoop up the sauce!
2-3 cups of veggies - you'll want to mix it up
   Tonight Kelsie used about 1/4 chopped onions, clove of minced up garlic, cup of sliced mushrooms, cup of grated zucchini, and 1/2 cup of spinach.
1 can of cream of something soup - we used Cream of Mushroom
about 1/2 cup of milk
salt & pepper to taste - you can also experiment with spice mixes
1 cup of grated cheeses - again variety is nice!  Kelsie had some yummy Creamy Toscan soaked in wine leftover from Trader Joe's run that needed to be used up.  We also added 2 nice scoops of some ricotta cheese, and topped it off with some Parmesan.

This dinner comes together pretty fast.  Start noodles cooking, and then in a large skillet saute the veggies.  Since we're in Kelsie's apartment, she used a pan that's oven safe.  First she cooked onion and garlic, then added mushrooms and zucchini.  Once veggies were cooked through, she added the soup and milk.  As that's coming together, you'll add some salt & pepper (or spices) and the cheese.  She added the spinach last - helps keep it's beautiful green color.  Noodles were done cooking, so I helped add them to the skillet as she stirred everything up.  It's okay to get some of the pasta water.  The starches from cooking noodles will help bring this pasta together.  Scrape down the pan and smooth out the pasta dish, sprinkle with some Parmesan cheese.  Bake in the oven for about 15-20 min.  Doesn't this look great to eat?!?