Basic Baked Rigatoni

This recipe is a healthy make-over of a dish I learned how to make in my 8th grade cooking class. Whole wheat pasta and low-fat cheeses make this better for you and more Weight Watchers friendly. This is also a basic dish, meaning you can add all kinds of different ingredients to it to shake things up if you want!

Ingredients:

1 box of whole wheat pasta
1 jar of pasta sauce
1 small container of low-fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (again, low-fat)
Parmesan cheese
oregano
garlic powder
salt & pepper

First, cook the pasta. You could use ziti, penne, rigatoni or similar shaped pasta.


While pasta is cooking, make the cheese mixture. Use small container of ricotta, 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, salt, pepper, oregano and garlic powder. Mix well.


Coat a 9 by 9 dish with non-stick spray.

Pour a small amount of pasta sauce on the bottom of the pan.


Add half of the cooked pasta. Sprinkle with oregano.


Add all of the cheese mixture and then top with half of the jar of sauce.

(be sure to smooth out the ricotta, not shown here)

Add the remaining half of pasta.

Top with remaining sauce and sprinkle with cheese if you please.




Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.




1/6th of the pan is 7 Weight Watchers points and is very filling! That is the serving size shown in the picture above.

Ideas for a more versatile dish: add ground beef or vegetarian crumbles, add spinach, mushrooms or other vegetables, use different varieties of pasta

Pineapple Angel-food Cupcakes

So I've joined Weight Watchers for the billionth time, and I lost a couple pounds the first week!

Therefore, the WASP foodie will be under-going a WW makeover. This doesn't mean the blog will only feature celery and frozen diet TV dinners. It just means that I will include (mostly) WW friendly foods AND I will include points values for my recipes.

If you've done Weight Watchers before, you may have heard of this one. 1 can of pineapple, 1 box of angel food cake mix. YUM!

You will need:


angel food cake mix
20 oz crushed pineapple (including juice)

and your choice of...
cupcake pan and liners (makes 24)
loaf pan (makes 2)
or an angel food cake tube (makes 1)

Since variety is the spice of life and since I only have 1 cupcake pan, I made 12 cupcakes and 1 loaf pan.

It doesn't get much easier than this. If Cass had opposable thumbs and wasn't lazy and aimed only to sit on my dark-colored clothing, I bet she could bake these.


First, empty out the cake mix and pineapple into a bowl.


Mix by hand or with electric mixer for a minute or so. That angel food mix will pull some weird chemistry on you and get all foamy.


Pour into cupcake liners or whatever kind of pan you are using.



Follow the box directions for time and temperature. The cupcakes took about 15 minutes and the loaf was about 35 minutes. I made the mistake of not carefully reading the package directions. I used dark non-stick pans which required a lower temperature. The result was darker and slightly sunken-in funky shaped cakes. No worries, they still taste great!

a lil powdered sugar never hurt nobody

see the funky loaf shape? hmmmm....

Here are the points values, DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!!

One cupcake is ONE point!

An eighth of the loaf pan is TWO POINTS!

If you use the whole batter in a different cake pan, an eighth of that is FOUR POINTS!

Not too shabby, eh?!

Hal O'Peno's Cast Iron Cornbread

Cornbread was voted the #1 cast iron classic here at Wasp Foodie. Of course it would be! It's rustic, simple and cooks up beautifully in cast iron cookware.

Check out this recipe. It's easy and the jalapenos can be omitted for a less-spicy-more-bland taste.

You will need:


DRY INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup corn meal
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon or more of salt

WET INGREDIENTS:

2 egg whites
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil (forgot to add to pic above!)

You'll also need 1 to 2 jalapenos and a cast iron skillet.

Preparation:

~ Chop up a jalapeno. I sliced one and only put it on top, but you could add chopped jalapeno to the batter as well. Be sure to remove the seeds.

DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES, NOSE OR OTHER MUCUS MEMBRANES!

~ Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

~ Grease the skillet. I used Crisco.

Step one: Combine dry ingredients and mix well.



Step two: Add wet ingredients and stir until combined. Don't over do it.



Step three: Pour into cast iron skillet.


Step four: Adorn with jalapenos and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.



Step five: Pull it out of the oven, slice and eat!





MMmmmhhhhhm, butter.

Jess's review:

Perdy darn good. I like that the jalapenos just sit on top- this way people who aren't into heat can pick them off with only a little residual spice and flavor left over. This would go great with some chili or stew... or just plain with butter and a glass of milk!

Royall's review:

"Corn-tronic" says the bread robot. Four stars. The only thing keeping it from a five is having a jalapeno chopped up in the batter.... or maybe TWO more jalapenos chopped up in the batter!

3 dollar, 3 ingredient cobbler

Cobbler is such a great summer food! And this one is super easy. With only 3 ingredients, you have NO excuse for not giving this a shot.

You need:

2 cans (8 oz) of fruit, I used peaches
1 package of cake mix
roughly a stick of butter


I shopped at the lovely Walmart in Mesa and these ingredients were a dollar each! Not bad.

If you want to make a smaller cobbler (9 by 9), use 1 can of fruit and 1 box of jiffy cake mix (it's smaller).

Step one: Grease a 9 by 13 pan.

Step two: Empty cans and spread evenly. Be sure to include the syrup.


Step three: Sprinkle cake mix on top.



Step four: Pour melted butter over top.


Step five: Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.