Six-Seven-Eight: The Chronicle of a Liberal Couple's Culinary Adventures: Novel Noodles: Cheesball Bake and the Rainbow Ricotta Bowties

We love pasta of nearly all varieties year round, but its an especially satisfying meal in the colder months while stuck inside. Last time on "Novel Noodles" we explained how to make a sauceless pasta with sausage, beans, and roasted vegetables, and today we'll look at an interesting pasta bake that came about as a way to use up a variety of different ingredients in the fridge that were nearing their expiration dates.

Cheese and pasta are fast friends, but there are plenty of kinds of cheese you might not think to use in a noodle-based dish. One night while trying to figure out what to put together for dinner (the day before our big grocery shopping trip when supplies were low) we went on a limb and threw together a meal based around the remnants of a very non-traditional component: a cheeseball!

To start our bake we chopped up a few handfuls of mushrooms:

And next grated a zucchini to get some fun color and a different texture going:

Along with our mushrooms and zucchini we had about half a red bell pepper in the back of the fridge, which got diced up as well.

The vegetables are all softened up first by briefly cooking in a skillet.

To make this dish creamy without any heavy cream, sour cream, or cream cheese we threw in the only thing on hand: an almond and chive cheeseball. The almonds may sound strange, but there's actually quite a few pasta recipes that use different nuts (beyond just pesto, which is also technically nut-based), and we'll be covering some of those in future blogs.

Here's the filling after its been all stirred together and heated on the skillet.

While the veggies and cheese were melting together we cooked up some pasta - in this case macaroni, as there was half a bag leftover after making a casserole a week before.

After the macaroni is mixed into the filling, we spread everything into a baking dish. It may look a little like macaroni salad, but it's going to taste much different by the time we're done.

In most cases pasta needs a great sauce, and we almost exclusively make our own sauces. Now that we know the glory of homemade, jarred sauce from the store just doesn't compare anymore. Homemade sauce doesn't need to cost more than cheap jarred brands, however, as it's simple to whip together a fantastic sauce using just a can of diced tomatoes.

The tomatoes go in a blender with a healthy dose of Italian seasonings - basil, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and anything else that sounds good to you. In addition, a handful of sugar and a few dashes of balsamic vinegar take this sauce to the next level. Stir it up in the blender, and then reduce it down in a covered pan on the stove for a thicker consistency. You can also add in a little hot sauce if desired.

When our sauce is ready it gets spooned over the macaroni mixture in the baking dish.

To go along with our pasta bake we have some bread slices covered in garlic salt and a bit of butter, which are briefly baked in the oven until crisp.

Topping off this impromptu casserole goes a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese.

And here's our cheeseball bake out of the oven with a delicious layer of melted cheese on top.

Cheeseballs are all well and good when nothing else is handy, but if you have a container of ricotta you can make an out-of-this-world pasta with just a few ingredients. For this novel twist on a noodle dinner, we take a jar of ricotta, sliced the solid cheese in half, and cover it in seasonings in a baking dish.

While the cheese is baking we put together another fantastic tomato sauce, this time with the a can of whole tomatoes (instead of diced). They are kept whole throughout the cooking process until just the end, when they are then crushed with a wooden spoon. The sauce also includes diced onion, diced fresh garlic, oregano, and balsamic vinegar.