It’s been a cold start to spring here and we were craving a nice hot casserole. I found a recipe that intrigued me in a magazine, but about an hour before dinner time I realized that this “baked” casserole was actually cooked in a slow cooker and took 4 hours. PAH. So I winged it.
Preheat your oven to 350°F and find yourself a large 9 x 13″ baking dish.
Quarter a red onion and slice it up.
Wrangle yourself about 1lb mixed mushrooms and slice them. I found these handy mixed packages at the grocery store.
Crack open a 28oz can of diced tomatoes.
Defrost 2 10oz blocks of frozen spinach.
Also, grate up about 1 cup mozzarella cheese.
Boil up a pot of salted water and cook 1lb rigatoni. When it’s cooked (it can be on the al dente side), drain it and set it aside.
Now, haul out a frying pan, add some oil and butter to it, and sauté your onions until softened and starting to brown. Mix that with a few teaspoons minced garlic.
Dip those out and do the same for your mushrooms.
Now you line up your ingredients.
Mix them all up, except for the cheese.
Now here’s the thing. This recipe actually called for you to add about 4 cups ricotta cheese at this point. I even bought the ricotta. But I forgot. So there wasn’t any. So I leave it up to you whether you want to add it or not. But you probably should. Mine ended up feeling like it needed more sauce.
Plop your pasta mix in your casserole dish and sprinkle the top with mozzarella.
Bake for 30 minutes, until cheese is melted and everything is bubbly. Serve with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.
