Pasta Potluck

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen 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 make, 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. 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

Here you go, Paula. So, 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 kind 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 sautéing chopped yellow onion

and chopped green pepper. and minced fresh garlic. We're just gonna 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 gonna 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 going to 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 going to 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 going to put the lid on it and let it simmer. And while we're doing that, I'm going to come back here

and now we're going to 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 overcooking your pasta

because it's gonna have about 20 or 25 more minutes of baking 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 of 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

. 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. 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. And 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

All right, we're going to mix those up. And we're going to add feta cheese and we're going to add Swiss cheese

So yummy. I'm going to 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 going to move this dish over to the side. We're going to start with a layer of pasta

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

Looks so, so good. In this dish, I'm using butter because the pasta is 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 mild 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 gonna 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 gonna ladle our custard over and kinda help it along so it can seep down in there

This is just gonna 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. Next

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'm going to let it drain, and I'm going to 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 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 gonna 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 gonna just lay the chicken breast onto our pan just like that

So that's all we do. And we're gonna stick this in the oven and we're gonna 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 gonna take him out and they look delicious

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

So in goes our mayo. And I'm gonna 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. 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. Alright, 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. Okay, so we're just going to toss that in just like that

We're just going to 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 going to take our chicken and just kind of 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