Baked Seafood Pasta

I love to play play with food. This recipe is similar to macaroni cheese baked. Except that you add in some seafood to call it seafood pasta. You can replace seafood with any other ingredients available from your kitchen. eg. ham, bacon, sausages, mixed frozen vegetables or even any left over cold meat. For a more extravagant treat, just replace shrimps with Lobsters and crabs and you can call it "seafood au gratin". Simple recipe and quick to make. Cheese lovers will love it !

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups of colourful shell pasta (i mixed shell pasta with fetucine)
2. 1/2 can Campbell Cream of Chicken and Mushroom soup mixed with equal amount of water
3. Some seafood:shrimps, calamanri slices, white fish fillets, crab sticks and etc
4. 1 beaten egg
5. 1 onion, sliced
6. Few cloves of garlic, chopped
7. 1 capsicum, cut into cubes
8. 2 tomatoes, cut into cubes
9. 1 cup milk
10. 50 g of Edam cheese/cheddar cheese/any other strong flavoured cheese
11. Some parmesan powder or mozarella cheese slice (basically you just add any cheeses and amount according to your own preference- you can call it 3-cheese pasta if you add 3 varieties)
12. Chopped fresh parsley /basil/ cilantro/oregano (whatever herbs you preferred, dried mixed herbs are okay too)

Methods:

1. Cook pasta in boiling salted water till tender, drained.
2. Heat up a little oil in the pan, fry onion and garlic till fragant, add in pasta and the vege and stir fried for 5 min.
3. Transfer all the ingredients including the seafood into a baking dish.
4. Pour in the egg mixture with Cream of Chicken and Mushroom Soup and enough milk to cover the pasta.
5. Stir well with the mozarella cheese slices
6. Top with more cheeses
7. Sprinkle the top with mixed herbs
8. Bake covered for 15 min at 220 degree celcius. Then another 15 min uncovered to brown the cheese topping.

Quick Baked Pasta

Elgin got bored with the food catered by his school canteen and the burden now has fallen upon his mom to crack her head thinking what to pack into his breakfast box every morning. I just play-played with this recipe and the result is not too bad. Great as a quick fix for any busy working mom like me.

You will need:
1 bowl of colourful pasta
1 can of Campbell Cream of Mushroom/Mushroom potage
1 egg
1 pinch of salt & pepper
Some mix vegetables or celery or brocolli or cauliflower
Some sausages/chicken hams cut into small pieces (omit this for vegetarian diet)
Some cheddar/mazarrella cheese

Methods:
1. Boil the pasta in a pot of hot water according to instruction in the packet. Drain the pasta when it's cooked.






2. Pour the pasta into a casserole dish and mix it with cream of mushroom, cut sausages/ham, egg, pepper and salt.





3. Topped with cheese slices.Sprinkle some oregano or mixed herbs on top







4. Baked till the cheese has melted and it's now ready to be packed into the tupperware.

Italian Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
2 cups of pasta
2 tbsp Italian dressing
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp thousand island sauce
1 cup mix vegetables (e.g. broccoli florets , tomato, celery and carrots cut into cubes, corns & etc)
1 tbsp Italian mixed herbs
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese powder

Methods:

1. Boil pasta till soft. Drained and drench with some olive oil.
2. Blanch all the mix vegetables. Drained and let it cool in a pasta bowl together with the pasta.
3. Add in Italian Dressing, Mayonnaise, thousand island sauce, mixed herbs and Parmesan cheese powder. Mix evenly.
4. The pasta is best to be served cold. Store into the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.

Tips which you may not find in your best recipe book:-

1. If the mixture gets too dry, add in more dressing and sauces.
   
2. If you run out of thousand island sauce, you may mix together mayonnaise with some Maggie tomato sauce/chilly sauce as an alternative.
3. You can buy ready frozen mixed vegetables from supermarket. However, if you hold strongly to freshness as key to your health secret, you can replace with fresh vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower florets, freshly cubed carrots, turnips(yam bean/sengkuang), beetroot, baby corn or cubed pineapple and tomatoes.
4. Serve in small glasses and it's great for parties!