cooking, eating, feeding…and finding some other fun along the way.

In the oven…

I love pasta shapes.  Most of them have fun names that come from their appearances, and adorable tiny things make me smile 🙂

gemelli1 gemelli2

Gemelli roughly means "twins" in Italian (think Gemini, the twins) and they are two little rods twisted together. Any short, hefty-ish pasta would work well.  I tend to avoid long noodles in casseroles, because it is difficult to mix sauce and pasta evenly.  I had milk, chicken, and random stuff around, so I got gemelli and made this tonight. It’s a beautiful PINK 🙂

Gemelli Blush Alfredo Bake

  • 4 Tb. butter
  • 4 Tb. flour
  • 1/2 quart of milk
  • salt & pepper
  • grated parmesan cheese (I used one small bag)
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1 can petite diced tomatoes
  • 1 pound par-cooked gemelli pasta
  1. melt butter over medium low heat
  2. add flour and whisk together and let heat for a minute or two (this gets the raw flour taste out)
  3. off of the heat, slowly add milk, whisking constantly to get rid of any clumps
  4. return to heat and stir while it slowly thickens
  5. salt and pepper liberally (this seasons the sauce, the pasta, the tomatoes, and anything else you add, so don’t be stingy)
  6. add parmesan and stir until melted
  7. off heat, add chicken broth, tomatoes (this is when it gets wonderfully pink!), and pasta (I also added one chicken breast, sliced, because I had it on hand…you could also use veggies, broccoli, whatever)
  8. coat a casserole pan with cooking spray and pour in pasta mixture, making sure to spread everything evenly around the pan
  9. cover with foil and cook at 350° for about 30 minutes
  10. uncover and bake another 20 to 30 minutes (until pasta is cooked through)
  11. top with mozzarella if desired and bake for 5 minutes until cheese is melted

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Yum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply





XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>