Easy Oven Baked Pasta

Sometimes you just feel really lazy, don't you?  It can't just be me, can it?  I confess . . .  I do have days when I feel really lazy.

Days when I can't get motivated to do much of anything, and yet I am absolutely starving!     That is when a recipe like this one here today comes in really handy.




It might not look like very much, but don't let what it looks like fool you into thinking that this isn't very, very tasty.  It's fabulously tasty . . .  well as tasty as the jar of pasta sauce that you use.   

 Yes . . .  she shrieks in horror . . .  I do use a jarred pasta sauce once in a while!   Doesn't everyone?



I am not a culinary paragon of virtue.  I do have a store cupboard full of ingredients that I use from time to time . . .  when I am lacking in time, energy . . . and yes inspiration. Because even I am not always "on."   

I do buy quality pasta sauces when they are on offer . . .  I am not fond of no name or generic brands.  I have a particular fondness for Lloyd Grossman sauces . . .  and Napoli, which brings me to this dish here today.

 

About a month or so ago, I found a jar of Lloyd's oven bake pasta sauce that I had picked up on offer a while back, just to try like.  I can't remember what flavour it was . . . I think it might have been the  Al Forno one with pancetta in it.  

 In any case, I made it and it was really tasty.   So tasty that I tried to pick up some more one day when I was at the shops . . .  to no avail, because they had plenty of his pasta sauces, but no oven bake pasta sauces.



And that is when I decided that I would try making my own version of it, using whatever pasta sauce I had in my larder, simply by adding some water and dry pasta to it and baking it . . .  and you know what???  

It worked like a charm.  In fact it was perfect.  Result!  Pasta which has been baked in sauce is really very tasty . . .  and all you have to do is just sit there and let the oven do all of the work.  All you need is some salad and crusty bread on the side and Bob's your uncle! Even the Toddster rather liked this and that says a LOT!

*Easy Oven Baked Pasta*

Serves 2 to 3

Printable Recipe  

For those nights when you are singularly lacking in inspiration and time.  This leaves your hands free to do something else when it is baking.  

1 400g jar of pasta sauce, any flavour (approximately 2 1/2 cups)

300ml of water (1 1/3 cups)

150g of dry pasta (any short shape such as penne, 1 1/3 cups)

70g of grated cheddar cheese (2/3 cup)

a handful of buttered cracker or bread crumbs

2 TBS grated Parmesan Cheese    

Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. 

Empty the sauce into a  1 1/2 litre casserole dish (about 1 1/2 quarts).  Whisk in the water to combine and then stir in the dry pasta. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and stir well.  Stir half of the cheese into the dish.  Combine the remaining cheese with the buttered crumbs, and Parmesan Cheese and sprinkle this evenly over top.  Return to the oven and bake for a final 10 minutes at which time the pasta should be cooked properly and the top will be bubbling and golden brown.   Let stand for about 5 minutes prior to serving. 

Sorry for my absence of the past couple of days!  I had no internet connection, well not a lasting one anyways!  Hopefully it's now been sorted!  I missed you! ☺ 

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