Inside out pasta pie and other health foods

[sqbr]

On Saturday night I couldn't decide what to cook with the ingredients I had to hand, so looked them up in google, but I forgot to add "spinach" so just had "Beef mince recipe", and what with the internet being largely american, and american cuisine being, uh, intensely idtastic(*) I came across some very not-diet-friendly dishes, one of which was so bizarre I had to try it (modified to my tummy's requirements)

I give you: Adriana's Pasta Pie, a mix of pasta, sauce, and cheese, covered in cheese, in a crust made of cheese..and meat.

Of course, I made it without the cheese, which kind of defeats the purpose, but it was still quite satisfyingly meaty(**). You might be able to make a vegetarian version with chickpea patty mix I guess?

The other promising recipe (to my tastes) was Southwestern Baked Spaghetti (which might not suffer so much from a de-cheesing). Also, googling "meat crust" got me Low Carb Meat Crust Pizza, which gets my vote for most undiety diet food ever, I guess at least they tell you to drain the grease...

EDIT: Via lauredhel, the wonderful trashy_eats. Mm. Tasty.

(*)I'm trying to use less ablist language, or the term I would have used there is INSANE
(**) If you're curious, the changes I made were to replace the sauce with bottled sauce (1.5 hours to make pasta sauce?) plus garlic, basil, spinach and tomato paste and half an egg (to make up for the flavour and goopiness of cheese respectively), and I added some smoked garlic and tomato paste to the meat to make it tastier. Oh, and I only made two servings so cooked it for less time. It made a nice lunch today, too.

Comments

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that if the point of a dish is to be really satisfyingly meaty, vegetarians might be better off finding a vegetarian recipe that really satisfyingly not meaty, rather then trying to make a vegie version. Which may or may not be satisfying.

Well that was my helpful thought for the day :)

[alias_sqbr]

I think the idea of "Patty mix as pie crust" has potential even without meat, though admittedly not being very familiar with vegetarian patties can't say for certain. I mean, one of the other primary appeals of this dish is all the cheese (which you can have), but I enjoyed it without it :)

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

That's probably true, I was just amused by your comment. And I am a huge fan of cheese. :P

It reminded me of a situation where everyone is served steak (and some side salad maybe) and the when the host realises that a guest is vegetarian going "oh but you can just leave the meat out right?" *

I'm not saying its that situation, its not, but it made me laugh and think of it. :P

*Which is true, but makes the whole meal a little less enjoyable.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, that happens to me too (though admittedly it's less reasonable to expect people to have a me-friendly meal). And I once spent so much time emphasising that hotdogs + salad is not vegetarian friendly "because they can eat the buns and salad" that people assumed I was a vegetarian :)