Baked Spaghetti Made By Jorge

My very favorite kinds of meals are quick, few ingredients and yum. Also, kids will eat, nutritious, not at all fattening, inexpensive to make and prepared by my unicorn private chef, Jorge (unicorns emigrated from Scotland to South America in the 1400s, did you not know that?) would be nice, but I will settle for four or five of those qualities.

Therefore, the baked spaghetti and mozzarella I made for pre-soccer practice dinner last week fit the bill. This one is also totally from Everyday Food Magazine.

Ingredients:

2 cans of whole tomatoes
Olive oil
Fresh garlic
3/4 package of spaghetti
Fresh basil
3/4 lb mozzarella (not shredded, in a ball)

Basically, all you do is boil the spaghetti to just past crunchy (so not quite done). Puree the tomatoes in a food processor. Dice or press as much garlic as you like and saute it in the olive oil until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and simmer sauce to thicken. Cut mozzarella into little 1/2 inch cubes. Toss together the sauce, the basil (just torn into medium to small pieces), the spaghetti and half of the mozzarella and transfer it to a large baking dish. Top with the rest of the mozzarella and bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or so (until it’s bubbly).

Totally basic, but really clean, delicious flavors. Plus carbo-licious for the kids to have energy to burn at practice (and they actually ate it, which also doesn’t suck).