Fasta Pasta

I’d planned to cook a pasta bake this evening, but the weather proved too hot for any of my usual recipes to appeal very much. We still fancied pasta though, so I threw together this new dish, using what I had in the fridge. Any short pasta would be fine; I used penne, as it's what I have in the house. I limit our stores of pasta as much as I can; one short type (penne) and one long (linguine for preference, but usually spaghetti). I also keep macaroni and some quick-cooking fusilli in the cupboard to do fast meals for the children.

Summery Pasta Bake

200g dried pasta (see above)
2 rashers bacon, chopped
handful mushrooms, chopped
handful cherry tomatoes, quartered
handful spinach

Cook the pasta, then put the spinach into a colander in the sink and drain the pasta over it. This will wilt the spinach. Meanwhile, fry the bacon and mushrooms together. Stir these, and the tomatoes, into the drained pasta and spinach. Tip it all into an ovenproof dish.

250ml milk
2 eggs
100g cheddar cheese, finely grated

Beat all the ingredients together in a jug and pour over the pasta in the dish. Top with another 50g of grated cheese, then bake for 30 minutes at 180°c.

It did feel very summery, actually. A bit of green salad on the side was all it needed; the boys gobbled it up and Hubby, without any prompting, pronounced it "smashing", which pleased me inordinately.