Pasta in Oven

As we are in Winter break here, I don’t need to go to school everyday.  I didn’t want to wake up early yesterday morning, in fact I didn’t want to get out of the bed eventhough I woke up. It was great to know that it was Monday but there was no work.  After lingering over breakfast, I decided to do some house chores and to change the planning of some rooms. I feel refreshed whenever I make some “restoration” inside the house by changing the places of the coach, armchairs, bookcases (we have 6 big bookcases), and the other portable things in the house. It’s like moving to a new house, so whenever I get bored, I do it at least once a year as I do love renewals. Of course I wasn’t alone while doing these, I could have never managed all these without the help of my hubby.

When I was having a cup of Turkish coffee to take a rest, I realized that the dinner time was coming. And guess what? I remembered that we had invited two friends for dinner. “What are we going to cook?” was the question I repeated a hundred times. And hubby offered his practical proposal: Pasta in Oven. Yep! It was a great idea because it was easy and scrumptious. I have never met anybody refusing pasta no matter how it is cooked. However, when cooked in oven, pasta becomes more special with its irresistible look. It looks like a kind of borek, doesn’t it?

Our friends were happy to see the new planning in our house and feel the wonderful smell of  pasta coming from the kitchen. It was ready when they came, but we needed some fresh salad to serve. We always love to work with our guests in the kitchen, so I didn’t refuse their proposal for help and  put the necessary ingredients for a salad on the counter. Hubby served us red wine as he knew how to motivate us to work. After a very short time, our dinner was ready with a great trio: Pasta in oven, green salad and red wine.

Fırında Makarna
Ingredients:
-    ½  package of pasta (I used bucatini, thick spaghetti)
-    1 cup feta cheese
-    3 eggs
-    2 ½ cup milk
-    3 tbsp olive oil
-    3 tbsp flour
-    1 cup chopped parsley
-    1 cup grated kasar cheese (yellow cheese), for its top
-    Salt
-    Black pepper

Heat water in a large pot. When it boils, put the pasta in the pot, add a few drops olive oil, this will prevent the  bucatini sticks(?) from sticking to each other. And boil it for 10 minutes. Takeit from fire, put it under cold water and drain. Put it in an oven tray, add crumbled feta cheese with parsley and mix them.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Mix milk, flour, egg, olive oil, salt and black pepper together until smooth. Seperate a little of this mixture aside and pour the rest on pasta and mix. Spread the seperated milk mixture on its top. Cook it in oven for about 30 minutes. Then take it out and put the grated  kasar cheese evenly on the pasta. Put it back into the oven and cook it until the cheese melts (about 5-7 min). Serve it cutting in squares.

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Pasta with Red Hood

I came home late from work today, I was so hungry, so I had a look at my recipe notebook to find a simple but delicious dish. After passing a lot of pages, eventually it was in front of me. Last month I took this recipe from Semra, my close friend. She cooked it for us and I loved it. Without wasting any time, I wrote this easy recipe. Generally I cook pasta with just tomato paste or cheese or yogurt, but this one is the most tasty one for me. I don’t know if Italians make it in this way.

And I give it this name beacuse when I look at its photo, just the association of Red Riding Hood came to my mind.

Ingredients
•    2 cups pasta
•    3 tomatoes, grated
•    2 green peppers, diced
•    1 red bell pepper, diced
•    2 cloves garlic, sliced
•    1 onion, diced
•    1 tsp thyme
•    1 tsp black pepper
•    2 tsp salt
•    3 tbsp olive oil
•    Tomato paste

Put some water in a pot and bring it to boil. Then add two cups of pasta in the pot. Put a few drops of olive oil to prevent the pieces of pasta from sticking to each other and add salt. Boil it until tender ( about 7 or 8 minutes). Then drain it.

While it’s boiling, you can prepare the sauce in another pot. Put olive ol in it and saute onion, then peppers and finally add grated tomato in the pot. Stir for a while and add tomato paste and garlic. If you think, it doesn’t have enough liquid, you can add a demitasse of water. Season it with salt, black pepper and thyme. When all vegetables combine well, and when you feel that appetizing smell, it’s cooked.

Take some pasta on a service plate and put the sauce on it. You’ll see that in a very short time, you can prepare a filling and tasty dish, so being tired doesn’t matter. I want to thank to Semra for this recipe.

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