parent pasta night!

Friends of ours recently took our three children over night.  It was to repay us for watching their 2 children for a couple of days earlier this year.  The kids were thrilled to have a sleepover, and us parents were thrilled to have a free night.

Only wrench in the plans?  Our town.

The local movie theater *had* been playing 2 good choices, but they changed over to crap.  None of our local restaurants were in the least bit enticing...and pretty much every one serves some version of a hamburger.  Not too exciting.

So I decided to attempt to recreate a *fabulous* pasta I had at a wonderful Italian bistro in Ottawa earlier this year.  Especially appropriate for a mom and dad night, as we don't have pasta loving kids.

Ingredients:
fettucini (fresh is even better)
sun dried tomato pesto
roasted red pepper, chopped - grill your own if you can't find it in a jar
olive oil
turkey or chicken breast (optional)
herbed goat cheese

Grill your turkey or chicken, and shred it.  Cook the pasta.  Toss pasta with the pesto and a drizzle of olive oil.  Then liberally sprinkle the chopped red pepper and the shredded grilled chicken on your pasta.  Then add some goat cheese on the side, you can either stir it in, or add to your fork for a variety of tastes in the mouth.  The hubby declared this delicious, and I declared it *Easy*.  Win/win, in my opinion!  Serve with some lovely bread and a glass bottle of wine.

Pumpkin Pie Cake

This is the cake that got me yelled at by my kids' Vice Principal, because she couldn't stop eating it. :)

Mix
1 box yellow or white cake mix (remove a cup first!)
1/2 cup melted marg
1 egg
press into a 9x13 pan

Blend
3 eggs
3 cups pureed pumpkin (here, I used homemade, but added roughly one cup of homemade pumpkin butter as part of the pumpkin)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar (again, a tweak.  I only used about half the sugar called for, because the pumpkin butter has sugar in it already)
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
pour over the crust

Combine the cup of cake mix, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup margarine.  You can add a 1/2 cup of chopped nuts, but I didn't because the school is nut-free.  Or is it peanut free - it's an ongoing debate.  I just skip nuts altogether when the school is concerned.  crumble this over the pumpkin layer.  Bake at 350 for 60 minutes