Spaghetti…leftover or new beginnings

After having spaghetti and meatballs, there’s often leftovers. What to do, what to do.  Sure, it can be reheated, or you can reinvent it and make a spaghetti pie.  Basically, you can add anything that works together and pleases your palate.

The world is your oyster when making Spaghetti pie.  If you double the recipe, use a spring form pan. This will make it taller and makes for a fun presentation for a party.

I didn’t have a large amount of pasta left over, so used a 9×11” casserole dish.  In my fridge, besides the meatballs, I had leftover pulled pork and fresh spinach. Yum!

Use this basic recipe as your guide:

preheat oven to 375 degrees

1 lb. cooked pasta (I used Angel Hair that was gluten free)
2 eggs
4 oz. Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. garlic
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. oregano
8 oz. marinara sauce
1/4 cup water (or milk, half&half, vodka…)

4 oz. cream cheese
4 oz. sour cream
4 oz. mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic
S&P to taste

• Stir in the eggs, Parmesan and spices to the cooked pasta (you can use whatever pasta shape you have on hand). The eggs help the pasta retain its shape and prevents it from puddling on your plate.
• Put a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a prepared (greased) 9×11” pan.
• Next use half of the spaghetti mixture
• Dot this with the sour cream and cream cheese. I eyeball this and roughly drop a teaspoon of each like I do when baking cookies. Either shred or cut thin pieces of mozzarella.
• I used a jarred marinara sauce (choose one that doesn’t have fructose corn syrup or sugar). If I cut the sauce with water, half&half, cream or even vodka, it tastes more homemade and loses the prepared-jar-taste.  Often I will add the liquid to the jar to get every last bit of sauce out of the jar, using just enough that it cleans it out, but not so much that it becomes runny.
• Repeat this layer.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes, or till bubbly

You really can’t go wrong. Use as much or as little cheese as you want.  If you don’t have mozzarella, there’s no rule saying you can’t use cheddar or Swiss. Ham or bacon, or just leftover veggies. If you have leftover chicken, just chop that up, add artichoke hearts and mushrooms and you have a completely different dish. As I said, the world is your oyster 🙂