Cheese and Tomato Pasta Bake

Aw, we have only 4 people in the house now. It seems a bit quiet, phoo~ But perhaps we'll finally be able to get some work done now, hehe. Before he left, one of our guests was asking whether we ate any beef at all. I answered sometimes, but we haven't really had that many beef dishes (as you might have noticed)

So this is actually our very first beef dish for the term! When making his spaghetti back home, Syukri would easily throw in a kilo of beef. But when beef costs 5 pounds a kilo like it does here, and you're a student...well, you have to be a bit more careful, hehe. But because the butcher's were out of chicken, we had to fork over for half a kilo of beef instead. And what goes better with beef than pasta? :) So...here we go!

What you need:
500g minced beef
2 onions, sliced finely
1 shallot, sliced finely
1 jar (500g) of pasta sauce, pick your favorite
3 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 tablespoon tomato puree
2 tomatoes, sliced
Cheddar cheese, grated
Parmesan cheese, grated
Oil, for frying
Black pepper, for seasoning
Cooked pasta, enough to serve however many people (we had 4 people - 1 kilo! of dried pasta)

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C.
2. Meanwhile, heat up some oil in a wok and fry the onions and shallots until softened and slightly translucent.
3. Add the minced beef and fry until browned.
4. Pour in the whole jar of pasta sauce, tomato sauce and puree. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Season with black pepper, and salt if required
   
5. In an large oven-proof dish, mix the beef sauce and cooked pasta together. Place the tomato slices over the top of the pasta mixture, and sprinkle the cheeses on top.
6. Bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until cheese is bubbling and golden-brown.

The boys were extremely enthusiastic about this, just because it has beef in it. It did smell good while it was cooking, I admit, and Hadi stuck his face in the finished dish (well, not literally) and breathed in all the beefy smells, saying how it smells like meat. Um, right. Well, its not like I tell them not to use beef... I say go ahead, but they're usually the ones complaining on how much it costs anyway, hehe.

I thought it was a pretty good dish, considering I only decided to make it on the way back from the butcher's. There were a few things I could've added though - some herbs (Mediterranean mixed, or maybe just basil), some chopped up sausages and salami as well as a sprinkling of olive oil. It could also have used more tomato sauce, I think, since it wasn't flavoursome enough, in my opinion. That said, the boys enjoyed it, if only because of the beef - and the roasted tomatoes! :P

The dish also looked good - the tomato slices made it look very pretty, although I just added it in for fun. :P I left it in the oven a bit too long though, so the top layer of pasta was a bit crunchy, but I like crunchy bits of pasta anyway, hehe. Also, I didn't put nearly enough cheese in it. I thought I put in a lot, but barely tasted it. It might be nice to mix in grated cheese with the sauce and pasta, as well as on top of the pasta. You can never have too much cheese, hehe. ;)

Quote of the day: For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's what happens to cheese when you leave it out.