What to do with Christmas Leftovers - Pasta Bake

We love Pasta here at A Mothers Ramblings, and at Christmas when I am tired from all the family visits, making a quick Pasta Bake is a great way to feed us all and to also use up some leftovers of the Turkey variety! I have a tendency to make more food than is strictly needed at most meals and so when I make a Pasta Bake I will often make two, one for eating now and one for freezing for eating in the near future. When I made this I made two different flavoured Pasta Bakes, a cheese one and a tomato one. The steps needed to make both are the same up a point so that is where I have separated the two out!

The first thing to do is to put the pasta on to boil. My brand takes around ten minutes to become tender and so its a race for me to get everything else prepared unless I am organised enough to have everything prepared beforehand!

Take your leftover turkey and cube it. Put it to one side as you won't need it until near the end now.

Slice an onion and 150g of Mushrooms and slowly fry over a low heat, the object is to get them softened. If you want to you can add a clove of crushed garlic. It depends on how evil I am feeling to people we are planning to see if I add the garlic or not!

The Cheese Chicken Pasta Bake                    The Tomato Chicken Pasta Bake

Add 50g of butter to a pan and melt                            Take a carton of passata and
When it is melted add 50g Plain Flour                         add a pinch of Italian Seasoning,
and mix well. Add in 80g of Cheese                             or other herbs of your choice. Gently
and slowly add 600ml of milk and stir                          heat on a low heat.
well until the sauce is thickened.

Remove the sauce from the heat and mix                      Remove the sauce from the heat
in the Turkey, Onion and Mushrooms. If                      and mix in the Turkey, Onion
you wish you can also add some chopped                    and Mushrooms. You can add
parsley whilst you season the sauce.                             to this seasoning to your taste.

Mix the pasta with the sauce and put into an oven proof dish. Top the dish with grated cheese and breadcrumbs before putting in the oven for 20-30 minutes at Gas Mark 4.

Serve and enjoy!

If you do want to make one for the freezer, I find that lining an oven proof dish with tin foil and letting freeze in a Square shape (before putting my oven proof dish back in the cupboard or putting straight into a disposable metal dish) works well. I would do this before adding the grated cheese and breadcrumbs and cooking that final time!