Easy Cheesy (Homepride Pasta Bake)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	Homepride Pasta Bake
Date:	03/03/09 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick to prepare

Disadvantages: you could do the same yourself

We usually have a jar of pasta bake sauce in the cupboard for the nights when no-one knows what to have for dinner. They have come in handy a lot over the years as a back up for a side dish or even as a main meal.
Made by Homepride, there are around ten different varieties of pasta bake available. My review will primarily be on the cheese and bacon one as this is the one we buy most often. Occasionally we get other flavours when they are on offer.

A jar of pasta bake will cost about £1.20 and makes a good meal for at least four people. For this reason I think it provides good value for money. Whilst I know I could make my own pasta sauce and do it all myself, sometimes I just don't have the time or the inclination so this way works best for me.
When we first started buying these I wasn't sure about the concept of eating pasta in sauce as a side dish, but I have since learnt that I can vary how much liquid I put into the dish to make more of a sauce for the meat in the meal, or less to create a stodgier side alternative. Your imagination and requirements are the only limitations on this meal.

To make a pasta bake, you literally only need a jar of this, some dried pasta and water. The jar tells you to put 200g dried pasta shapes into a dish (I use my lasagne tray), and pour the sauce over the top. You must then fill the jar with water to the top of the label and then pour this over the dish as well for extra liquid. I always put the lid back on at this point and shake with the water inside so I don't waste any of the sauce.
After you've given the dish a good stir, you can then bake in the oven for twenty minutes before stirring again, and adding grated cheese to the top, returning to the oven for a further 20 minutes.

I find when I add the cheese to the dish that there are odd bits of pasta that have cooked uncovered in the oven and have turned a bit crisp. I find it fairly easy to remove these pieces before adding the cheese, as afterwards it sticks together slightly more.
I think the only way you could ruin this dish if you were to leave it in the oven to cook dry, otherwise even a novice can cook this.

The smells that come from the oven when this dish comes out is a lovely strong cheese aroma. As there is cheese in the sauce as well as the extra I put on top, you do have to like cheese to eat this flavour of bake.
It all looks a nice pale golden colour, with bubbling darker bits of golden cheese on top once cooked through. A quick stir to mix the cheese and all that's left is to spoon onto plates.

The pasta is cooked perfectly in the 40 minutes it's been in the oven, even from dry, and the liquid helps it cook evenly. I find with the extra water, this dish isn't too runny but there is still a bit of extra liquid around your plate in the form of thick sauce.
Taste wise, this pasta bake is creamy and cheesy. If you like pasta then you'll like this as it's almost like eating a bowl of pasta with grated cheese on top but with extra cheese sauce instead. There is also a hint of bacon that comes through the taste buds as an aftertaste. Sadly there are only tiny flecks of actual bacon in the dish so I would maybe reccomend adding some extra bits if you wanted more.

I vary this meal occasionally by adding mini chicken fillets to the dish at the start, and you could also add vegetables into it as well, but I prefer to add the veg at the serving stage rather than the beginning.

Per 100g this jar will provide you with 67 calories and 5.3 grams of fat. For allergy information the jar also contains milk, egg, wheat, gluten and mustard.

I would highly recommend having a jar of pasta bake in your cupboard as a backup dinner.

Summary: a great back up