Somehow I moseyed my way through making this over the course of three days. I mean, three.days. 72 hours. FOR REAL. Don’t run away – it’s not going to take you three days to make this because you’re focused and on-task and normal. But wowzers. Apparently I am not. During these long Food Blogger Pro recording days, I’ve gotten way too comfortable with frozen pizzas and Pad Thai takeout and possibly had my brain sucked out of my head by those massively hot buzzing video lights. comment icon 63 more comments The good news is that this cozy deep-dish baked rigatoni is less about my distracted cooking abilities and more about the inexplicable goodness of Provolone cheese. PS. I felt compelled to show you that I had to keep my shredded cheese in the freezer to keep it from turning into fondue on the cutting board. Photographic reasons why this took me three days to make, exhibit A. Being that it’s the new year, I thought I’d start out with one of my all-time favorite so-healthy-but-actually-tastes-amazing tricks. I call it “whole wheat pasta drowning in creamy squash sauce”. Also healthy – eating spinach. Which I honestly haven’t done since we left America six months ago. There’s a 99% chance that I’ll cry when I take my first bite of salad again. Ugh. SALAD. Read: RANCH DRESSING. Is it weird that when I finally found spinach I immediately stirred it into pasta and cheese? Or is it the best idea I’ve had in the last three days? Definitely a good idea. Can I tell you about New Years? –> a bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg and a whole side of french fries for dinner last night, a few bites of Bjork’s deep fried Monte Cristo with raspberry jam, and an unfair amount of his fries. OMG. How was I just talking about salad? It was so, so good. By the way, what do regular people do on New Year’s day? Mysteries. Bottom line. I really need healthy things to taste good. This pasta? This healthy pasta? I’m LOVING it on this second day of the new year. I didn’t even really notice the squash sauce, which could be good or bad depending on your feelings for squash, and it could also have something to do with my taste buds being permanently desensitized to the flavor of squash after it being my only liked vegetable of the last 6 months, but it doesn’t even matter. In 2013, we need to be thinking about what really matters. Like melted Provolone cheese cascading over this gorgeous healthy-ish pasta. Really, though. Do it for the Provolone. 4.8 from 11 reviews
