I love Giada Di Laurentiis. I enjoy cooking most of her recipes and get excited when I find one that I haven't tried before. Somehow I have overlooked her Pizza Di Spaghetti recipe for years, and finally stumbled across it the other day. I knew that this was something that I had to make, since I often have leftover spaghetti.
Last night, I decided that it was time to try out this recipe. I must admit, that I am not sure what I assumed it would taste like, but it definitely did not meet my expectations. It wasn't bad...it just wasn't how I had envisioned it. (this happens to me a lot) I combined the spaghetti (presauced) with the egg, milk and cheese mixture, but I substituted the 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese with about 2 tbsp Parmesan and 1/4 cup of shredded Mozzarella cheese. I then heated up my pan with oil and dumped the mixture in, pressing it into the pan. When it came time to flip this out onto a plate, I realized that I should have tried a smaller Pizza di Spaghetti first, because my flipping and inverting skills are not what they should be. Anyway, I slipped it out of the pan and onto a plate with minimal mess, but while trying to invert it back into the pan (after adding a touch more olive oil) I realized that this was not a good idea...it didn't flip the way I thought it would, and kind of went all over in the pan. I quickly reformed it in the pan and pressed down to make sure it cooked evenly.
After it was cooked I slipped it back onto the plate and while it was cooling ever so slightly decided to make some semi ghetto style Garlic Bread. All I had left in the cupboard was sliced Italian Bread. So I smotherd it with butter and put it in the toaster oven to toast. When it was done, I cracked a piece of garlic and rubbed the garlic on the bread. My hubby and I prefer things VERY garlicky, so I also chopped some up and sprinkled it on top.
I then plated up the Pizza di Spaghetti and garlic bread, and was so excited to dig in. After the first five bites I realized that this wasn't exactly what I wanted. However, it was mildly successful since my hubby (who doesn't particularly like pasta) ate the whole thing and insisted that I not throw the rest away because he would eat it for lunch.
So I guess all in all it was successful, and I learned a lesson about not expecting so much out of recipes that are so simple...it really was just fried spaghetti, which I make often with our leftover spaghetti. If you would like to try out the recipe, you can view it here.