There were some great tips on The Kitchen this weekend, how to use shortcuts so that you can make weeknight meals without cooking a lot.
Most were things like using some pre-made items, such as pie crusts, pizza dough, biscuits, etc.
Has anyone seen pasta 'cakes?' They are a 'thing' these days. Anyway, the cook today said to stand up only a single row of pasta around the spring form pan, then take the rest, and mix it with your meat sauce (they used sausage and mushrooms in theirs, but any type would do.), then poured it inside of the pasta ring, so that when you unmold it, it still looks the same, but it's a fraction of the work.
By the way, when you finish putting the sauced pasta in the mold, you top with cheese before baking. In the show that I saw, they completely covered the top with slices of provolone, then put grated mozzarella on that.
In case you haven't seen it, here's what I'm talking about:
How people usually line up the pasta.
How it looks after baking.
Anyway, what are your best shortcuts? The ones that you go to again and again?
Ds starts with canned beans when he's late starting dinner and wants to make soup, refried beans, etc. for example.
How about you?
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