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Monday, April 05, 2010

easy cheesy




I've been receiving Real Simple and Vegetarian Times for about a year now. My friend's daughter had a magazine fundraiser and if some poor sucker bought a certain amount of magazines she would get a "cool" t-shirt. To quote the prince of Soul Glo, "anything for the kids".

Both magazines have tons of great recipes I've yet to try. I have magazine ADD or something. I do a flip, then a read, and by the next time I see it, can't really remember why I bought the darn thing. The most recent issues of each, which are my last, are extra awesome. It almost makes me want to renew but I got two gift subscriptions to other magazines for Christmas (VegNews and Cesar's Way!) and there is no way I can take all that glossy paper. Even though I love getting mail, it's just too much.

Real Simple always has a vegetarian recipe, but this is the first time I have tried one. It is for "cheesy baked pasta with spinach and artichokes". Even though I love to take forever in the kitchen, it is good to have some quick go-to recipes for when I only have 30 minutes or so. I didn't find mezzi rigatoni so I used regular rigatoni. I probably could have cut them after they cooked, but I can just use a smaller pasta next time. I subbed daiya for the mozarella and used about a shot glass of vegan parm. I think that's roughly an ounce. I put everything in a cake pan and thew it in the toaster oven on broil for a little over five minutes. Daiya take a bit longer to melt than dairy and I'm also not so sure the toaster oven "broil" is as hot as the oven broiler.

I definitely wish I had gotten some wine and bread to eat with this. I would double the amount if serving as a main course. My sister and I finished it quite easily, but we have "healthy" appetites.

p.s. The Texas Caviar killed the easter picnic yesterday. It was one of the first dishes to go. My cousins were psyched when I brought it out and asked if it was the one I made last year. It's similar but I like this one better since it doesn't have corn- I'm kind of grossed out by corn lately. I did add about a tbsp of cayenne and cumin to it since it needed some more flavor.

p.p.s. There is only one slice of strawberry pie left, gonna make another one tomorrow.

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