Baked Pasta

Day 8 of no meat.  I cannot say that I miss it entirely, but there are certain things that I find I cannot do.   One is eat at Alex's favorite sandwich place Jersey Mike's.  Sure they have vegetarian options, but they are not as satisfying as a nice turkey sandwich.  I choose to just get something from the grocery store and he can have his sandwich.  Today was a snow day from  school.  My car has not left the parking lot since I arrived home on Thursday.

Today, I put up a little Valentine's Day

  

And made another Yogurt Cake 

 

then I made Baked pasta with spinach and ricotta

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces of pasta (I used whole wheat shells)
• 1 & 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 clove garlic, minced 
• 1 large bunch of spinach, chopped
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon dried sweet basil
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red peppers
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of white pepper
• 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes with basil
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• Optional - I added the left overs from my Sweet potatoes with tomatoes and collard greens.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Cook pasta according to directions
• In a large bowl combine ricotta and Parmesan cheese until smooth
•  Add garlic, spinach, nutmeg, dried basil, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper.
• Put half pasta on bottom of 9 X 13 inch baking dish
• Top with 1/2 tomato sauce 
• Spoon over the top all of the spinach ricotta mixture 
• Sprinkle 1/2 mozzarella cheese
• Cover with remainder of pasta then tomato sauce 
• Top with the remainder of cheese 
• Cover with aluminum foil 
• Bake for 25 minutes covered 
• Remove cover and bake for 10 more minutes