Four Cheese Baked Penne

Welcome to this week's Craving Ellie In My Belly Recipe!  I'm excited to host for the first time.  As a people-pleaser/new host, I tried to play it safe with the recipe choice--of course I wanted to do something exciting or dessert-like (mmm, cake) but since we're still pretty early into the New Year, I wanted to respect those of you who may be trying to stay away from sweet treats.  I admire your willpower.

When we plan meals in our house, it looks something like this: I pick out a variety of recipes that sound good, and my husband picks his top 3 for the week.  I don't know why I even try this anymore--without a doubt, my husband will choose anything that resembles a burger or pizza.  I spent an embarrassing amount of time going through the CEIMB archives, trying to find something that hadn't already been done...and at the end of my search, had 4 choices I was fairly confident in.  I was slightly disappointed when the husband picked this one--seriously, why was I surprised--but oh well, here we go!

As I've previously mentioned before on this blog, I'm not a huge fan of pasta.  I like noodles and everything, but I just worry too much about calories, portions, etc.  This is largely due to the fact that I do not love marinara sauce.  Sigh.  I know, it's the low calorie/good for you option...but I just can't make my taste buds like it.  Having "four cheese" in the title definitely made me a little more optimistic about this recipe. :)

Cheesy goodness

So here's the rundown on the recipe.  Ellie says it takes an hour to prepare from start to finish (it took me about 10 minutes longer. I'm apparently slower in the kitchen than a professional chef. I suppose this shouldn't be surprising).  This is a little longer than I was hoping, since a lot of us don't have an hour between when we get home from work and when we want to sit down to eat...but the good news is, I think you could prepare the dish the night before, and just pop it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Ready to go in the oven!

The verdict: the husband loved it, and I really liked it, too.  I think this is as excited as I will get about a basic baked pasta recipe--so for those of you who are skeptical, go ahead and give it a shot.  I think it would be really easy to tweak--you could certainly add meat or veggies (we talked about adding spinach next time) to increase the protein/nutritional profile.

How much my husband ate. I think he liked it.

*Pros: Easy to find ingredients, relatively inexpensive, minimal mess, reheats well, could be prepared ahead, kid friendly (I think--what kid doesn't like noodles, sauce, and cheese?)

*Cons: Not a quick meal for weeknights, not exciting/company worthy

Will I make it again? Definitely.  We have several pregnant friends, and I think this would be a perfect "welcome baby!" meal to take.

Thanks for joining me this week--here's the recipe!

Fettuccine with Creamy Red Pepper Sauce

I'm not a huge pasta fan.

I'm not really sure why.  I think part of the reason is that I don't like tomato sauce.  I'll put up with it on my pizza or in a lasagna, but really--I don't like it.  This is a huge dilemma for the health-conscious side of me, because now I'm left with cream sauces.  Of course these sauces taste good, but because I know how many calories are in them, I'm basically counting each piece of pasta that goes into my mouth to make sure I don't over-indulge. 

Not fun.

So while I don't typically make pasta, I was intrigued by Ellie Krieger's recipe in The Food You Crave for a "creamy red pepper sauce."  Creamy?  Yum.  Guilt-free? (I knew Ellie would deliver a healthy, low-cal version of a cream sauce).  Sign me up.  And I love peppers...so here we go!

Only a few ingredients needed--we're off to a great start!

Have I mentioned how much I love my food processor?

Mmm...feta

The verdict?  Pretty good!  This definitely isn't something I'll crave, but when the husband is dying for some pasta--and I'm not willing to make his favorite dish, macaroni and cheese--this will be a possibility!


**Note: this recipe makes a TON!  We ate it for several days.

Time: 30 minutes

Pros:
*Quick and easy
*Inexpensive ingredients--mostly pantry items (except feta, which we always have on hand anyway!)
*Mild flavor--might work for a variety of palates
*Reheats well

Cons
*Not as flavorful as other sauces--needs some tweaking


Future suggestions:
*add 4 oz light cream cheese for a little more creaminess--the sauce needed a little 'something' to bulk it up
*skip adding pasta water--I didn't add the whole 1/2 cup Ellie mentions, but shouldn't have added any at all.
*roast (hotter) peppers myself and use those for more intense flavor

Nutritional Analysis per serving (6 servings):

Calories:470

Total fat: 11 grams

Saturated fat:4.5 grams

Protein:18 grams

Fiber:10 grams