8 ounces of chorizo
6 ounces of ziti, penne, or pasta of your choice
1 large stalk celery, diced
1/2 large sweet red pepper, seeded and diced
4 ounce can whole green chilies, drained and diced
1 or 2 good sized garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 good sized scallions, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces extra sharp cheddar
4 ounces smoked Gouda
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Remove from the casings from the chorizo and saute in a hot pan just until it is barely cooked through – it will cook a bit more in the oven. Remove the sausage from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Drain fat from pan, reserving a couple tablespoons to sweat the vegetables in the next step. Cook 6 ounces of ziti, penne, or pasta of your choice, in boiling salted water. Drain about 2 minutes sooner than the package directions state, because this too will cook further in the oven. After draining, put the pasta in a 3 quart casserole dish. You can throw the chorizo in there at this point too. Put the veg in the saute pan, with the reserved drippings from the chorizo and cook over lowish heat for about 5 minutes. Add the sweated vegetables to the pasta and chorizo along with the scallions. Mix all of this up. Melt butter in the same pan you used for the sausage and veggies – the bits you see in there are because I don’t even bother to wipe out the pan. To the melted butter, add flour. Stir the butter and flour over low heat for about 2 minutes and gradually add milk, stirring all the while, until it gets bubbly and thickened. Season with salt. Add your cheeses. Stir over low heat, until the cheese is melted. Whisk in cumin and smoked paprika. Carefully pour the cheese sauce into the casserole. And stir to combine.Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, until it looks all browned a bubbly. Let cool about 5 minutes.
And now for all of my changes! When it came time to cook the pasta, I decided the 6 ounces of pasta simply wouldn't be enough, so I doubled the entire recipe, minus the chorizo, since it had already been cooked. I used macaroni. I got distracted cooking the rest of the meal while the macaroni was cooking, and ended up cooking the pasta longer than suggested, but I think it should be fine.
I was a bit leery when it came to adding celery-it tends to add too much crunch for my taste to an otherwise non-crunchy meal. So I threw that in the frying pan first by itself, along with a small amount of water to help soften it up a bit.
In place of the red pepper and scallions, I decided to use up the leftover veggies we had from pizza night-mushroom, green pepper, and onion. I chopped them up finely. I didn't drain the green chilis. And then I just used regular salt.
When it came time to add the cheese, we had a big bag of Mexican blend shredded cheese, so I used it. Then, because of the way the recipe was written, I overlooked the cumin and paprika until the casserole was already put together in the pan. So I just sprinkled it on top. Once it was done, I just covered it with foil and popped it in the fridge. Super simple!
The results: I am disappointed. When I tasted it, I had memories of past Tex-Mex pasta dishes. I love Tex Mex, and I love pasta, but the two just don't seem to go together. I also over-cooked the pasta, which made it even more disappointing. The celery was still crunchy-apparently I didn't cook it long enough. This is not a dish I will try again.
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