Bowtie Ballsagna:

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2-3 C bowtie noodles
2-3 C fresh spinach
3 C homemade pasta sauce + 12oz of tomato puree
24-36 mini meatballs
6-8 fresh Thai basil leaves
2 C ricotta cheese with S&P to taste
2 C grated mozzarella and parmesan cheeses
2 C toasted breadcrumbs (optional)

Layering from the bottom up:
Thin coating of pasta sauce (no meatballs)
Cooked bowtie pasta noodles
Pasta sauce with meatballs
Wilted spinach (in a thin covering)
Ricotta cheese
Cooked bowtie pasta noodles
Pasta sauce with meatballs
Wilted spinach (in a thin covering)
Ricotta cheese
Pasta sauce (no meatballs)
Mix of grated parmesan and mozzarella cheeses
Breadcrumbs (toasted, and optional)

Start by cooking your bowtie noodles in water that’s been generously salted. In a large non-stick pan, start wilting down the spinach with a small pinch of salt and a teaspoon of oil (your choice); set aside to cool when it’s all cooked down.

As you cook the pasta and wilt the spinach, reheat your prepared or jarred pasta sauce in a deep sauce pot. To this, add your freshly cooked (if you had time to make any, of course) or frozen meatballs, the tomato puree, some freshly picked and cleaned Thai hot basil (if using dry leaves, half the called for amount; whole or chiffonade) and freshly cracked black pepper. Let that cook long enough to heat the meatballs all the way through.

Note: If you don’t have fresh or dried out Thai hot basil leaves, fresh sweet basil will be fine in the sauce. We like a bit of zing in our lasagna sauce, so that’s why I grow Thai hot basil in my garden.

Scoop out a bit of the pasta sauce to spread all over the bottom of your lasagna pan thinly. Scoop out a few more spoonfuls of the pasta sauce and set aside (this is for the topping). When your pasta is done cooking, drain it well. Layer more or less than half of the cooked pasta over the sauce in the lasagna dish. (Only use enough to cover the sauce, otherwise this lasagna will become very bulky.) Over the pasta, place a generous amount of sauce with half of the meatballs to cover the pasta noodles, but not much more.

Over the sauce and meatballs layer, lay half of your wilted spinach all over and top that with a few blobs of ricotta cheese; (I use a medium size offset spatula to) spread the ricotta over the spinach in an almost opaque layer. Top the ricotta with the second half of your pasta noodles and top them with the last of the sauce and meatballs. Top those with the last of the wilted spinach, and then top the spinach with the last few blobs of ricotta spread out and the reserved pasta sauce before finishing the lasagna with your two grated cheeses (and toasted breadcrumbs if you like).

This is for Olivia, whom I started to tell this story to at work but we got busy and, as always, I forget I even started the story or where I left off, and it never got told or finished. Sorry about that. So, here it is. Because you didn’t seem to believe me.

About a year ago, I stumbled over a pin for chocolate pasta over at Pinterest, and I was immediately struck with curiosity. I HAD to try this at home. It was a strong compulsion. I really, REALLY wanted to make this. And I was so SURE we would fall in love with it. I mean, how could we not?!

I know this looks like I’m making a chocolate cake, but I’m really not. It’s the funniest thing to look at and know I have to convince people this really is a thing, and people do make this, and it starts out looking like a baking project. 🙂 So after making this just like any other yellow egg pasta dough, I let it rest before I start cutting it up into noodles and then eventually boiling it hot salty water. All very straight forward, all very normal so far. And the final product… It was very pretty like this, and it cooked up nicely, but no matter what I paired it with or topped it with, it wasn’t for us. The husband asked me never to make this for him again. Period. End of story. 😀

This year I decided to grow oregano in my garden in addition to flat leaf parsley and my old standby, sweet basil. It’s been working out well. I’ve added small sprigs of the fresh oregano to a lot of different dishes, including some sauteed vegetables we ate over pork loin meat on buns last week. This week I made my favourite tomato sauce from scratch, and decided what it really needed was fresh basil and fresh oregano. The sauce turned out so well, I dreamt of making a pot of pasta to top with the sauce for breakfast. All night I thought about my freshly made pasta sauce in the fridge. All.Night.Long.

‘Mmm… So mouth watering.

This tomato sauce uses Marcella Hazan’s infamous tomato with butter sauce as the base.

Fresh Herb Tomato Sauce:
40 oz Jarred Tomato Puree
5 Tbsp Salted Butter
S&P to taste
1 M-L Yellow Onion, chopped coarsely
1 Tsp Fresh Oregano leaves
1 C Fresh Basil, torn or julienned
Jars with tight fitting lids (enough for about 50 oz of cooked sauce)

Bring tomato puree, butter, onion and seasonings to a boil. Reduce the temperature to a low rolling boil and add oregano and basil leaves. Simmer uncovered for at least 30-45 minutes till the sauce thickens. Remove the sauce from the burner to cool a bit while running your clean jars under hot water so the glass don’t burst when the extremely hot pasta sauce touches it. Pour the sauce into the jars and finger tighten the lids.*

Let the jars rest on the counter till you hear each of the lids pop or snap (about 30 minutes). This happens when the hot air in the jars evaporate and the seal is formed with the lid ring. You can then store the sauce in your fridge at that point. The popping will only happen if you screw the lids tight enough, but if you have a jar that doesn’t pop, and you can push down in the lid still after 30 minutes, just make a point of using that jar first within a week or two.

* Finger tight is a term used for screwing a canning lid on till tight with your fingers only, not your whole hand and muscles to apply force.

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Digression: The first dish I used this gorgeous tomato sauce over was my homemade chocolate pasta. I was still trying to nail it down to one or two different ways we can enjoy it at home when the husband asked me to not make these noodles again. Ever. He’s not into chocolate pasta. At all. And he’s a pasta fiend. (!!!) Oh, well. :-\

So, instead of doing a whole separate post on how to make chocolate pasta at home from scratch, here are a few pix of the attempts and some of the production of the pasta itself to give you an idea of what it was like, and what efforts I put into it.

Side Note: I previously served these pasta noodles with an Alfredo sauce and the same meatballs awhile back. We disliked that dish. So much it took me a long time to come around to cooking these noodles again. But I really needed to figure out if it was the sauce or the noodles we didn’t like so I could correct what was holding this pasta idea back from becoming a staple in our home.

So, with that in mind, I made a repeat pasta dish – with the only change being my tomato sauce instead of a creamy white sauce. All in the name of science, you understand. 🙂 As it turns out, for me it was that I didn’t like the Alfredo sauce over these noodles but found my tomato sauce worked quite well with chocolate pasta, whereas with the husband, as previously stated, he didn’t like the taste of the chocolate pasta in this dish either. So…

Given this whole experiment ended in a stalemate (and not at all how I imagined when I first discovered its existence), I’ve decided to give up on chocolate pasta. It’s not going to happen in this house. If you want the recipe, ask in the comment section of this post. I’m sure I can scare it up for you in the blink of an eye.

Below are the basic steps you’d make to produce the pasta from start to finish. Pretty, no?

Two eggs, pinch of salt, flour and coco powder. I forget the exact measurements offhand, but my rule of thumb for pasta dough making has always been 1 egg : 3/4 C flour if that helps. And I think this recipe calls for a ratio of 3:1 flour to coco powder, but don’t quote me on that. It makes sense given I used 2 eggs for there to be 1 1/2 C flour to 1/4 C coco.

Knead by hand on a floured surface. You can start the kneading in the mixer if you like. I’m not a fan of sticky fingers myself. I stop when the dough pulls away from the bowl and then turn it out onto my work bench to hand knead.

I wrap the dough ball to let it rest at least 30-45 minutes before I dig in to make the noodles with my pasta attachments and bench scraper.

I don’t have a proper drying rack, so I use an old coffee mug stand to air dry my pasta noodles after I loosely wind them around my hand after dusting the dough with flour. Once it air dries on the rack, I carefully (because it’s so frah-gill-eh) slide it off and slip it into a plastic baggie to seal up for storing. You can also make the noodles and then dump them straight into a pot of boiling water if you’re planning to eat them immediately.

They look so lovely and tasty swimming in the pot, and only look better as they rest in the bowl before being sauced. Remember, they are fresh and fragile, so resist the urge to toss this pasta with sauce. Only top it with your best sauce, and serve it with your best cheese.