If you’re like me (and I hope I’m not alone), you cringe and feel terrible when you throw away food…but it happens more than you’d care to admit. Especially for those of us cooking for just two, leftovers are a fact of life. Many times, I love leftovers…but sometimes, they sit in the fridge for days before I cringe and throw them out. I hate, hate, hate to waste food. I know the sad reality that the majority of our planet would kill to have enough food to even have the option to throw some of it away. Without going any farther down that road, we’ll just leave it at the fact that wasting food is clearly irresponsible.

So. What to do with those leftovers? Pasta is one of my least favorites to eat the next day, but I always cook too much the night before. It’s almost never good simply reheated, since any amount of heat cooks it further, and it turns to mush in a matter of minutes. Pasta is almost always the leftovers I throw away.

But the other day, that all changed. Famished after running around all morning, I came home with the knowledge of two ingredients I wanted to combine: local eggs and a little glass container of pasta from the night before. I envisioned something Giada De Laurentiis made ages ago on her show—something called Torta di Pasta, an egg-and-pasta cake that’s similar to a frittata.

Seriously good, cheap, and filling, this might be my new favorite lunch. It’s crisp on the outside, yielding and creamy on the inside. The next time you find yourself with some leftover long-strand pasta sitting in the depths of your fridge, try this. It’s not even a recipe, it’s that easy.

Simply heat a small splash of oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. When the oil is warm, add enough pasta to the pan to cover the bottom generously. Let it sit for 1 or 2 minutes. Crack some eggs into a bowl. For a small skillet, you’ll need about 3; for a large one, maybe 6. Whisk the eggs, and add some salt and pepper. Pour the eggs into the pan over the pasta. Let set until the bottom is firm and golden (maybe 3 or so minutes). Sprinkle the top generously with grated parmesan. Then you have a choice. If it’s a small skillet, use a spatula to flip the whole thing over. If it’s a big one, stick the pan under the broiler for a few minutes until the whole thing is firm and the top is golden-brown. Slice, and serve.

I dipped my bites in sriracha (of course), but some pesto or leftover warm marinara (or a mixture of the two) would be good to serve alongside.

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Ooops…has it really been two weeks since I last posted? Shame on me. Well, at least I have something tasty to share to make up for my absence.

I am, clearly, so very boring sometimes. Every time I am home alone, I eat pasta. Seriously, every time. And, when Jason isn’t here, I also tend to eat things he doesn’t like. So, when he’s away, pasta + his dislikes = my dinner. Without fail. So boring, right?

But truthfully, I never get bored with creating new things to mix in with, or put on top of, pasta. This time around, it was mushrooms and blue cheese—two things Jason will not touch. But also two things that go together harmoniously. I threw in some arugula since the gorgonzola makes a pretty rich sauce. Oh, and also because I cooked the mushrooms in a lot of butter, so I figured the green leafies offset the saturated fat. Or something.

This would be fine on any cut of pasta, but sometimes I just want the swirling and slurping that comes along with long strands. Simple and quick, but with an air of sophistication (maybe it’s the gorgonzola?), this is hearty and rich enough to make a lovely vegetarian weeknight dinner.

Pasta with Mushrooms, Gorgonzola + Arugula
serves 2

1/2 pound pasta of your choice
1 square container sliced cremini mushrooms (also called baby bellas)
1 large or 2 small shallots, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped and reserved, stems discarded
Coarse salt + ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 bag baby arugula
Crumbled gorgonzola cheese, to taste

Cook pasta per package directions. In the meantime, melt butter and oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. When butter bubbles and froths, add mushrooms, shallot, and thyme, stirring to coat everything in butter/oil. Don’t salt it yet.

Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are tender and deeply golden brown and shallots are slightly caramelized. Add salt and pepper to taste–go easier on the salt than usual, because gorgonzola can be salty.

When pasta is al dente, drain–but reserve about 1/2 cup of the cooking water (I use a coffee mug). Add pasta to the skillet with mushrooms. Toss to combine. Add arugula, and toss until it wilts. Add gorgonzola, as much or as little as you like, keeping in mind it can be pretty strong…just taste as you go. Add reserved pasta water, a little bit at a time, tossing, until the cheese melts and forms a nice creamy sauce that coats the pasta. Taste as you go. Serve immediately.

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For our Christmas party in December, I made bite-size meatballs inspired by the ones I’d had a few weeks earlier at my parents’ annual backyard party. I should back up—this party my parents throw is no typical backyard BBQ. Anyone who knows my family knows we simply cannot throw a party without this-is-why-we-came-to-the-party food.

A fabulous gastropub here in Winter Park called Ravenous Pig catered the party, and it was outrageously delicious. I managed to take a few pictures between the bites of food. For starters, there were miniature duck ruebens, Greek lamb meatballs, corn-and-crab fritters, mini biscuit BLTs, chicken liver mousse (I die. It was so good.), as well as artisanal cheeses and house-made salumi. For the main plates, we had braised swordfish (yes, braised, and it was awesome) and venison saddle. Dessert…oh, my. Root beer floats with malt ice cream, lovely little puffs of fried dough shaped like curlicue pigtails and propped in a puddle of rich dark chocolate ganache, and pumpkin crème brûlée with pepitas brittle.

Pictured here: Lots of amazing house-made salumi and artisanal prosciutto; Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk cheese, aged gouda, Miniature duck reubens; root beer floats; and the pigtails.

So, yes, back to the post at hand. The meatballs. I failed to get a picture of them, probably because I was too busy, you know, eating them. But they were perfect little bites perched atop dollops of cool tzatziki.  When it came time for me to make party food our Christmas get-together, these were at the top of my list. (For the record, they were a big hit…but that’s not what this post is about.)

This post is, actually, about dinner. The other night, I was thinking about those party meatballs, and how I could make dinner around them. I thought it might be fun to do a Greek-inspired twist on that ever-loving Italian classic spaghetti and meatballs, using orzo and the aforementioned Greek meatballs. I used ground chicken, but I think I’ll try lamb next time. The result was a quick weeknight meal with lots of interesting flavors and textures. And it all started with those little party hors d’oeuvres.

Greek Pasta and Meatballs
Serves 4

2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon salt, plus additional for sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus additional for sauce
1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
2 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, divided OR 2 teaspoons dried dill, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint, divided
3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs
3/4 pound ground meat (i.e. beef, lamb, turkey, or chicken)
1 egg white
2/3 cup uncooked orzo
2 cups canned crushed tomatoes or great-quality jarred marinara sauce
Crumbled feta cheese, to taste

Preheat oven to 400º. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

Combine oil and onion in a small skillet over medium heat. Cook until mostly translucent, about 3 minutes. Add 1 clove minced garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir, and cook until very fragrant, about 2 minutes. Transfer onion mixture to a small bowl, and set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Combine 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh dill (or 1 teaspoon dried dill), 1 tablespoon mint, breadcrumbs, and cooled onion mixture in a medium bowl. Add ground meat and egg white. Use your hands to mix everything thoroughly, being careful not to squish or compact the meat too much.

Roll meat mixture into 1-inch meatballs (you should end up with about 20 total). As you roll them, place meatballs on the prepared baking sheet. Bake meatballs until tops are golden brown and insides are cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the kind of meat you choose.

While meatballs bake, cook orzo according to package directions. Heat the remaining oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add remaining garlic, and stir until fragrant and just turning golden. Add crushed tomatoes or marinara, and remaining herbs. Stir, and taste. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until heated through.

To serve, divide orzo among 4 serving bowls. Spoon 1/2 cup sauce over each serving, and top with 4 or 5 meatballs. Top with crumbled feta, or pass it at the table so everyone can add the amount they prefer.

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This was officially the first really chilly day in Birmingham, but the cold was slowly seeping in all week in the form of drizzly rain, cloudiness, and general ick. Instead of my go-to comforting soup or baked-something-or-another, I took one glance at our CSA box brimming with ripe tomatoes and huge stems of green and purple basil and had an idea. If it couldn’t be warm and sunny outside, I’d cook something that would make it that way inside.

I made a quick tomato sauce with lots of fresh basil and tossed it with whole-wheat penne for just the right amount of heartiness. It was bright and warm and just the perfect way to really bid farewell to the warm weather and usher in the lovely fall. If it’s still warm enough where you are to have red, ripe tomatoes and fragrant, fresh basil, this is a great last taste of summer.

Simple Tomato-Basil Penne
serves 2

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon anchovy paste or 2 anchovies, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Hot red pepper flakes, to taste
2 large or 3 medium ripe tomatoes, cored and diced
1/2 pound whole-wheat penne
1/4 cup fresh basil, julienned
Coarse salt, to taste

Heat olive oil in a large skillet with high sides or a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add anchovy paste, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring often, until fagrant, about 2 to 3 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high, and add tomatoes. Stir to combine.

Meanwhile, cook pasta until just underdone, when it’s still just a little too chewy in the middle. Drain, reserving about 1/2 cup of cooking liquid, and add pasta to the pan with the tomato sauce. Toss to combine; if the pan looks dry, add a splash of the reserved cooking water. Cook until the pasta is al dente, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add basil, and stir to combine. Taste, and add salt if it needs it.

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I’ve been away for awhile, haven’t I? I could give a million excuses, but instead I think I’ll pick up where I left off. Sound good? I appreciate those of you who’ve continued to check in here time to time to see if I’d gotten my act together and rejoined the land of the blogging. It’s only been two weeks, but in a world of daily updates {and minute-by-minute tweets}, two weeks feels like two months.

Truth is, I’ve been making a lot of repeat dinners…another savory tart here, another stir fry there…and I haven’t really been branching out in the kitchen. We’re also doing some major budget tightening here at Chez Thin Chef, so as my grocery budget shrinks, I tend to rely on go-to, inexpensive meals. More on what these entail soon, I promise.

Anyway, I made this delicious pasta for one a few weekends ago when Jason was out watching football. I’d been running around all day, and it was just chilly enough outside to warrant a hooded sweatshirt. Those evenings call for something carb-y and creamy and comforting. And, if you know me at all, you know that when I’m home alone, I make pasta.

For budget {and laziness} reasons, I relied on what I already had on hand. Once the combo of bacon and goat cheese came to mind, the dish came together quickly. Smoky, slightly chewy thick-cut Georgia bacon, creamy Alabama-made chèvre, and a few handfuls of {gasp} frozen spinach—but only because my fridge lacked fresh—created this lovely balance of fatty, creamy, and veggie…all atop a serving of small seashell pasta. This is for one serving, but as always, it can easily be doubled or quadrupled as needed.

Oh, and my camera battery died, and when I grabbed the replacement battery from my bag, it was dead, too. Oops. So I grabbed my iPhone to snap a picture of this yummy little bowl, and then I had some fun and turned it into a polaroid via Rollip.com since, let’s be honest, the iPhone is no Canon Rebel.

Pasta with Bacon, Spinach & Goat Cheese
serves 1

1/4 pound (or so) short-cut pasta, such as seashells, penne, or bowties
2 (or 3 if you’re so inclined) slices thick-cut bacon, cut into small strips
2 very generous handfuls fresh spinach (or frozen, if you must, thawed and squeezed of excess water)
Drizzle of olive oil
2 heaping tablespoons crumbled chevre (or to taste)
Hot red pepper flakes, to taste

Cook pasta in plenty of boiling, well-salted water according to box directions. Meanwhile, cook bacon over medium heat until mostly crisp and golden brown. Transfer bacon to a plate lined with paper towels.

Drain pasta, and return to pot. Add bacon, spinach, and a drizzle of oil. Toss with tongs or 2 spoons until spinach is wilted and everything is nicely coated with oil. Place in a serving bowl, and top with chevre and red pepper flakes. Taste, and add salt if needed. (Pasta should be seasoned from the salty cooking water, and bacon is quite salty itself, so make sure to taste it before adding salt!)

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My in-laws are in town, and we’ve been eating out since Friday afternoon. Jason and I thought it would be good to spend an evening in, and it was actually my dear husband who requested fresh pasta. Though it is a labor-intensive process, I couldn’t say no. Plus, spending an afternoon in the kitchen with flour on my hands is always a good day for me.

Yesterday, we got some gorgeous locally grown tomatoes, and they became the sauce for our golden strands. Simmered for 2 hours, the tomatoes {sweet as they already were} tasted like they had been injected with honey. Sweet but not cloyingly so, the sauce was a celebration of my favorite summertime ingredient.

Garlic bread and a salad completed our meal. Fabulous.

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Among said gifts is a hand-crank pasta maker. Growing up, I spent a handful of Saturdays with my dad, rolling out pasta in the kitchen, and then slurping the fresh noodles with some kind of homemade sauce, and thinking to myself that there was never anything more delicious. I am among the lucky few to have grown up with a father who does things like makes pasta from scratch, bakes sourdough bread, preserves lemons, and uses the Thanksgiving bird for scratch-made stock. What can I say? The man is unique, and I am a more educated and inspired cook because of him.

I digress. Making pasta is among one of the easiest and most satisfying, if not time consuming, things you can make. Flour and eggs magically transform into a ball of supple, golden dough. Actually, let me back up. They transform into the golden, supple ball when you use the correct amounts of ingredients. For my inaugural pasta making, I followed Mario Batali’s recipe for basic egg pasta dough, which is the same as the one found in the Italian cooking Bible, The Silver Spoon Cookbook. Their recipes were as follows: 4 cups all-purpose flour + 4 large eggs. Maybe a teaspoon of olive oil. And a sprinkling of water, if the dough looks dry. Perfect, I thought. It can’t be wrong. If millions of Italians use this and an expert of Italian cooking uses it, it’s got to be perfect.

Fuming at Mario Batali in his smug orange clogs, and frustrated at wasting 4 beautiful organic eggs and almost all of my flour, I almost gave up. But then I remembered how great homemade pasta is. So I started over. This time with a scant 3 cups of flour and 4 more eggs, plus another egg yolk and about a teaspoon of olive oil. Belissima—it was perfect. I later found a Batali recipe calling for 3 1/2 cups flour and 4 extra-large eggs. Perhaps I just got a dud recipe.

(4 eggs plus 1 yolk — perfect!)

(Nice and moist…much better this time.)

(Beautiful ball of dough, with the bad one in the back. For shame.)

It rested (next to the offending lump of unyielding, rock-hard dough, just to show it what it should look like) for 40 minutes or so, and then Jason helped me roll it into silky strands of fettuccine.

My advice for making pasta: First, start with 4 eggs + 1 egg yolk and 3 cups of flour (unless your eggs are enormous). You can always add more flour to a gloopy dough, but you can’t take it out. I’m not here to make a liar out of Mario Batali (or any number of internet sources that all gave the same amounts of ingredients), but the 4+4 thing didn’t work for me. Secondly, almost every recipe says to make the dough on a large cutting board by mounding the flour and creating a well in the center in which to put the wet ingredients, but I don’t have a large enough board. I made a well in the middle of flour in the largest bowl in my kitchen, and it worked just fine.

My Pasta Dough
Serves 4 to 6 depending on cut of pasta

3 cups all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

In a very large bowl, or on a large wooden cutting board or clean countertop, mound the flour into a mountain shape. Use your fingers to make a well in the middle, turning the mountain into a volcano. Add the eggs, egg yolk, and oil into the center of the well. Use a fork to lightly scramble the eggs, and then slowly but continuously stir the eggs, incorporating a bit of flour each rotation.

Keep stirring in this manner until about half of the flour is incorporated. The dough will look raggedy. Scrape the dough off of the fork, and then use your fingers to finish mixing in the remainder of the flour.

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface. (Skip this step if you’re already working on the counter. Duh.) Knead the dough for about 5 minutes until it’s elastic and smooth. Cover with a clean kitchen towel, and allow to rest for 30 to 45 minutes at room temperature.

Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces, and follow your pasta maker’s instructions for beautiful, tasty pasta.

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