Pasta Potluck

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Dean and tonight I've been invited to a potluck supper

And you know for potlucks, there's only one way to go and that's with pasta

This means I'm going to need to find the freshest pasta around. And then I'll show y'all three pastabilities that'll make it look like you've been cooking all day

First, I think I'm going to start with a beautiful baked spaghetti. And then I'll show you how to make an exotic spicy shrimp-filled casserole

that I promise I'll have the folks lining up for seconds. And last but not least, a fettuccine chicken salad that's light and just right

So y'all go get your water to boil in and get the strainer out, because today it's all about potluck

You know, there's nothing better than this time of year using fresh herbs from your garden

in your pastas, but not just an ordinary pasta, a wonderful fresh pasta. So come with me. We're

going to get some. Now today I've decided to go all out for this special pasta potluck dinner

That's why I'm going to see my friend Angela. She makes the best fresh pasta in my neck of the woods

but y'all don't worry if you can't get fresh pasta near your house because all of the dishes I'm

making today work out just great with regular dried boxed pasta. What are we making here? This is the pasta sheets. It's rolling out and then we'll put it over and

we'll cut it into whatever you need. You want to start with fettuccine? That sounds great. Okay. Now

would we make spaghetti out of this or is this just the flat? No, this is going to make spaghetti

angel hair, fettuccine, whatever you need. Okay, so it's the same pasta, just different

shapes. Exactly. And here's your fresh fettuccine. I hope this is how you like it. Just the way

I like it. Okay, now we're going to just package this up for you in a box. Make little nests

I love the way you package it. Yes, I already have the spaghetti and the angel here

And almost like gift boxes, a work of art. Thank you. I'm sure your recipe will turn out lovely

And don't forget, the pasta cooks very quickly, the fresh pasta. And you're all set. Okay

There you go, Paula. One more time. Five days in the fridge

Right, five days in the fridge. Thirty days in the freezer. Mm-hmm. Well, thanks so much

Thank you. I know it's going to be heavenly. I'm sure it will, too. Thank you, Angela. Bye, Paula

Have a great day. Thanks. You, too. Angela had some wonderful pastas there for me

I think you can see why I'm willing to go to this town of trouble for this baked spaghetti

by going to see Angela and getting some of her products. They're just the best, freshest you can get

And we're going to start today by making our sauce for baked spaghetti. Fodor Magazine actually named the baked spaghetti that we serve at the Lady and Sons

the very best baked spaghetti in the South. So I think you're going to love this recipe

We're going to start with a little olive oil. And we're going to start by sauteing chopped yellow onion

and chopped green pepper and minced fresh garlic. We're just going to stir those around and let them sweat for a few minutes

They don't have to get soft and gushy, but just, like I said, we're going to let them just sweat

All right, our onions and our peppers and our garlic has sweated

and now it's time to add the tomatoes. These are canned diced tomatoes

Now, you can use fresh if you like. They make the best sauces

And this is an ordinary canned tomato sauce. And I'm adding a little water to ours

And now we're gonna add our seasonings. We've got an Italian seasoning

and we've got some seasoning salt, a little sugar, and then I'm gonna put house seasoning

and I'm just gonna kinda do this to taste. The last thing I wanna do is add this wonderful fresh parsley that I got from the garden This is an Italian parsley It my favorite of all the parsleys And we just gonna chop just a little bit

This is just so pretty in that sauce, the red and the greens

And it's ready for the cover. We're gonna let this simmer for about 30 minutes

before I add the meat to it. And it's so easy. While our sauce has been simmering, I've been browning our ground meat

Now, for this particular dish today, I'm using a ground round hamburger meat, which is quite delicious

And look at our sauce. It looks fabulous. Just add our meat to the sauce, and then we're going to let it simmer for, oh gosh, maybe 20 or 25 more minutes

So you can see you really can't mess this dish up. That looks just perfect

So we're gonna put the lid on it and let it simmer, and while we're doing that, I'm gonna come back here

and now we're gonna move to the star of this dish, our fresh pasta

Look how beautiful that is. This pasta that we're using for the baked spaghetti

is a regular spaghetti noodle size. And you can see how beautiful and fresh it is

and it's been dusted with semolina flour so it won't stick. Now we're going to check our water

and hopefully it's at a rapid boil. Because it is fresh pasta

it cooks in a quicker time than your ordinary hard box pastas

Drop it in there in this beautiful pasta. Doesn't that look so good

So we're going to just gather all of our ingredients close to us and assemble our pasta, and this

is so, so easy. We're going to start by using just an ordinary 13 by 9 by 2 container

Oh, everything is smelling so good. We're going to put just a little bit of sauce in the bottom of our pan so that our pasta

can kind of rest on it. Doesn't that pasta look delicious? And we're gonna put a layer of pasta on top of the sauce

About the only way that you can ruin this dish is really by over cooking your pasta

because it's gonna have about 20 or 25 more minutes of bacon after we assemble it

So this is not through getting all the heat that it's gonna get. Okay, now we've got a nice thin layer of our pasta

and we're going to add a layer of cheese. This is a sharp cheddar, and this is just a Monterey Jack

So now we're going to go with another layer of sauce. Alright, one more thin layer of pasta

pasta so we're just gonna finish evening this out. Okay that looks just about perfect. So

we're just gonna finish putting the rest of the sauce on it. All we have to do now is

top it with our cheeses and one more time I'm using a sharp grated cheddar and a Monterey

jack, but you can use anything you want to. This pretty baby is ready to go into the oven now. We're

going to let it bake for about 20 to 25 minutes. Now, if this were cold, we would bake it probably

45 minutes, but today we're on top of things. It's hot, and we're going to bake it for 25 minutes

In the meantime, I had another one over here that should be ready for us, and we'll take a look at it

Look how delicious that looks. It's still bubbly and hot. Doesn't that look yummy

How's that for a square baked spaghetti? I've just got to taste this

And you know I could spruce it up with fresh parsley or grated Parmesan cheese

but I don't think this needs anything but my fork. Oh. Oh, it's still steaming

Your family's going to just love you. And when we come back, a spicy shrimp and pasta casserole

Music Music Music Music Music Music

Hi, while y'all were gone I started getting our spicy pasta and shrimp casserole ready

This is an angel hair pasta that we're using. It's an even smaller pasta than the spaghetti

spaghetti. We're going to begin by making a very easy, quick custard. Let's start with

our eggs. These are beautiful brown eggs that I'm using. And I'm just going to whisk those

up a little bit. I'm going to add my cream. The half and half just works perfectly for

it. And I'm adding some plain yogurt. You can actually use a sour cream if you don't

have any yogurt around. Now I'm going to add about a teaspoon of oregano and thyme

Alright, we're gonna mix those up, and we're gonna add feta cheese, and we're gonna add

Swiss cheese. So yummy. I'm gonna just finish up by adding some fresh chopped parsley

Doesn't that look good? It's beautiful custard. And then that's ready to go

And I'm gonna move this dish over to the side, and we're gonna start with a layer of pasta

And I think since that pasta's so hot, our spaghetti spoon may be in order

Looks so, so good. In this dish, I'm using butter because the pasta's going straight into the bottom

of this pan, so we definitely don't want it to stick. Okay, the next thing we're going to do is top our angel hair with just a jarred salsa

I'm using a mile today, but that's the fun thing about recipes

They're truly just a starting point for you. If you like hot, put in hot by all means

Now for the best part, we're going to layer these beautiful shrimp on top of our pasta

And these are nice, fat shrimp. Actually, I got these shrimp from a shrimper buddy of mine in Savannah

We get wonderful, wonderful fresh seafood. And now we're going to cover it with Gruyere cheese, just like this

And now we're going to quickly cover it with another layer of pasta. Okay, so we've covered that

And now we're going to top the pasta with another layer of shrimp

And y'all will notice that I'm leaving the tails on mine. Once again, that's strictly a personal preference

Okay, we're going to ladle our custard over and kind of help it along so it can seep down in there

This is just going to be out of this world. So now this is ready to go into the oven

We're gonna let that one bake for about 30 minutes, but in the meantime, I've got another

one right over here that's been baking, and let's look at it

It's perfectly beautiful. Look how delicious that looks. I think I'll just sprinkle it with a little fresh chopped parsley

And I could even add a little bit more cheese to the top

I've waited as long as I can. I'm ready to taste

It's so simple and so easy to make. Life is good. Next, we're doing fettuccine chicken salad

Okay, I'm taking the fettuccine out, cooked for about four or five minutes

I gonna let it drain and I gonna leave it actually just sitting right there for a few minutes while I start working on the chicken of the dish All right I taken just a regular boneless chicken filet breast and sliced them into about one inch wide pieces

All right, I'm putting a little house seasoning on it, a little seasoning salt, and I'm going to add a little olive

oil just so it won't stick to the pan and it'll make it just

a little bit juicier. I'm just going to toss that together like that

Let it drink up all that good olive oil. Now I'm going to add just a little freshly chopped thyme

And remember, when you're using fresh herbs, it actually takes a little bit more than a dried herb would

Now I'm going to just lay the chicken breast onto our pan, just like that

So that's all we do. And we're going to stick this in the oven, and we're going to bake it for about 15 or 20 minutes

All right, so into the oven for about 15 or 20 minutes

In the meantime, I have another one over here that's been cooking. And we're going to take them out, and they look delicious

Don't those look good? And then we're going to put our sauce together

So, in goes our mayo. And I'm going to take the drippings from our chicken

and add to that mayonnaise just to make it a little bit richer

There we go. All right, now all we do at this point is add spring onions or green onions

depending on where you're from, fresh parsley. We're just going to stir that into that

A little of our house seasoning, a little seasoning salt. And the herb that really gives it a nice flavor is fresh basil

So into the mayonnaise base it goes. All right, at this point, all we're going to do is toss our pasta with this fabulous mayonnaise

mixture that we've got. And you can actually do this the day before or the morning of

So we're just going to toss that in just like that. We're just gonna put it onto our dish

Oh, doesn't that look delicious? Almost looks like it's coated in an Alfredo sauce, doesn't it

A mayonnaise Alfredo sauce. And we're gonna take our chicken and just kinda place it around on our salad

Just like this. And then we're going to garnish this very, very simply by just using cherry tomatoes and green onions

I think it's time. So let's see what we've got

It's just delish. Coming up next, some tips to make your pasta perfect

Here's a few great, quick pasta tips. When you're cooking your pasta, always cook a little extra

You can throw it into a Ziploc bag into your fridge. It'll keep for three days

Or you can toss it in oil and throw it in the freezer, and it'll keep up to three months

And when you're making your baked spaghetti casserole and you just don't have time to make that homemade sauce

by all means, cheat and buy a jar of sauce. Just add a little extra water to it to thin it out

And when making your fettuccine chicken salad, try different shapes. The children just love all these funky, different pastas

All of our potluck pasta recipes came out so perfectly. I really can't make up my mind which one I like the best

I don't know if I like the chicken fettuccine the best or the baked spaghetti or the spicy shrimp and pasta casserole

but I do hope that you have a chance to try them all and hope you love them

So, till we eat again, best dishes from my kitchen to yours

Bye