What's Cookin' Wednesday

Baked Vodka Sauce Penne

Vodka sauce is boyfriend's favorite. He loves it. He could probably eat it with a spoon. Alone. I've made this a few times, but decided to change it up a little. Instead of just plain old pasta in sauce, I dumped cheese on top and baked it... yum! It turned out amazing. We paired it with an Olive Garden style salad (lettuce, red onion, parmesan cheese, croutons, and Olive Garden Light Italian Dressing). It was a wonderful meal. Of course, as soon as he was done, boyfriend says, "I could go for a big bowl of gelato, now." He's an endless pit.

The recipe is ridiculously easy.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter

1/2 an onion, diced

1/2 cup vodka

1 (28oz) can crushed tomatoes

1/2 pint heavy cream

1 pound Noodles of choice

Mozzarella cheese (optional)

How to:

In a sauce pan, melt the butter and sauté the diced onion in it for about 5 minutes.

Next, stir in the vodka and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the crushed tomatoes and continue to simmer for another 30 minutes, stirring periodically.

While you're waiting, start the noodles and cook until al dente!

Now we can add the heavy cream! Then let that simmer another 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

(I'm a little messy.)

While you're waiting for that to simmer, preheat your oven to 350 and spray a 9x13.

When you're finally done waiting for all that simmering, you can toss the pasta in the sauce, give it a good mix and dump it into your prepared dish. I sprinkled mine with mozzarella and parmesan.

Let that bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and bubbly.

Paired with the salad, this was amazing.

Let me know if you give this a try and how it turns out!