Thanks and an Asian-Inspired Baked Pasta

Basically recovered from Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24, and somewhat caught up at work, it is time to come back to the dear ole blog. In the interim, in a major fit of procrastination from the ridiculous load of work I had last week, I have joined the land of twitter—though I am not quite in the swing of it yet.

But, today, I thought I would do a thank you post. (And, hopefully, I didn’t miss anyone.)

Thanks to:

• ‘Arte Y Pico’ Award: js and ts from [eatingclub] vancouver—my spirit twins (triplets) in Vancouver who make delicious food and are great bloggy supporters.
  
• Yum Yum Blog Award: Sophie at Flour Arrangments—sweet food (pun intended) and now doing a great job dealing with newly discovered gluten-sensitivity.
  
• Brilliante Award: Natasha at Tastorama—wide range of dishes and someone who would be a lot of fun with whom to share a dinner
  
• I love you this Much Award: Nazarina at Giddy Gastronome—a kindred spirit about the aesthetics of food—have you seen her famous strawberry cake?
  
• And a kind mention, from Foodalogue, a kind commentor and tasty chef.
  

To all of you, thanks, and instead of passing these on, I have bookmarked recipes and I will showcase one of your recipes eventually.

Then there are the non-meme thank yous. First, Foodbuzz—thanks for the apron. You guys sure now how to make a girl feel loved. And, I am afraid Belle has squirreled it away. When I find it I will post a picture.

Finally, a GIANT thank you to Claudia (my dear Bash) of cook, eat, FRET and Heidi of Life in Recipes for the wonderful times the other weekend. You girls are a serious good time. Next time, it will be on me ladies, and I promise an Indian banquet chez moi.

To thank you all, I made CSA Asian-Inspired Veggie Baked Pasta.

Last time I was at the Asian grocery buying nori, I noticed they had a whole room of noodles. I mean a room bigger than a Manhattan apartment (alright, that doesn’t make it sound big at all) but a large room with every type of dried noodles. While we are trying to tighten our belts, I could help myself. I decided to buy $5 worth of noodles—which meant I got three packages. This one got one of the coveted spots to the land of Maybelle because of the cute little childrens on the package. Are they not sweet little ones?

While it was baking, I made sure to give it very good PR calling it macaroni and cheese to Belle. The PR sort of worked. She ate the noodles and the acorn squash; and she attempted to give the tomatoes to the dog (attempted.)

Plan:
Asian-Inspired Baked Pasta

Boil 1 small bag of little macaroni until half-cooked and then toss with sautéed garlic and olive oil.

Make a simple béchamel but added lemongrass when adding the milk. After it was cooked, add nice dose lime zest.

Then onto the veggies—I had acorn squash, onions and zucchini from the CSA. Plus, I had tomato from mine own garden. But, slice the veggies thinly; and precook those veggies that usually take a while to cook. I used each veggie only once—and I only cut up a little bit.

Create a soy bean and lime spread. In a blender, blend frozen soy beans, hot water, a pinch of amchur and a pinch of chili pepper. (I had planned to mix the soy spread with the béchamel, but then decided to use it as one of the layers.)

Then, layer everything, periodically pouring in some béchamel. You could top with panko. I didn’t have any so I just used my tomatoes.

Bake at 375 until bubbly

Serve this with bread topped with soy bean spread.