For the Love of Pasta

If you frequent this blog then you have probably noticed a trend around here - pasta. I really do love pasta in all iterations - fresh, dried, stuffed, it really does not matter to me.

Please allow me to go off on a bit of tangent about running for a moment (I promise that it will all make sense later if you are patient enough to bear with me). The other day I had this crazy idea to register for a half marathon. I say this is crazy because I have not run in almost 3 years. At all.

I used to be a fairly avid runner. I ran The Other Half Marathon in Moab, UT two years in a row back in 2005 and 2006. (As a side note, if you happen to be looking for a half marathon to run, I highly recommend this one. It is a mostly flat course interspersed with just a few gently rolling hills and it winds its way along the Colorado river through red rock country. Absolutely beautiful and truly the perfect weather in October.)

In training for this race for the third year in 2007, I broke my foot. It was one of those super lame bone breakages where you can still kind of limp around but your foot is swollen and in mild (but not excruciating) pain. It actually took me a month to go in and get an x ray because I was convinced (and naively hopeful) that I just had a bad strain. Not so. I had broken the middle bone in my foot, just below the toe. I was not so comfortingly informed by the student health nurses that a cast will not help such a bone heal, and so I was relegated to wearing a mini-boot and put on crutches for 3 months - not so fun when you have a hyper little 2 month old puppy running around.

In the years that followed I swam for exercise and avoided running like the plague. But recently I started to get the itch to run again. It's like a bad addiction creeping up for a relapse. At first you think about it once or twice and then shrug it off, but the more you try to push it out of your mind, the more it tends to creep back in slowly. Maybe it was watching my sister get so excited for her race. Maybe it was all the years that my runner friends in Utah and I talked about running the Big Sur Half Marathon but never followed through with it. Perhaps it was driven by the fact that I am turning 30 in a little over a month (gasp) and feel like I couldn't run to the mailbox if I needed to. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above. Whatever the impetus, dear readers, the itch to run came back and it came on strong.

So I took the plunge. I registered for the Big Sur Half Marathon. It is 10 weeks away. I am pretty sure that I may be insane. But damn it, I'm going to do it anyway!

I got off to a great start by skipping my first scheduled run (it was on Labor Day and I was on a road trip - excuses, excuses, I know). But yesterday I drug myself out of bed and I ran 3 miles. And while this is really no big accomplishment for any seasoned runner, the fact that I can still walk today (although I am a little sore) after not having run in 3 years feels like a victory in and of itself to me. And to be perfectly honest, it really wasn't all that bad (see, I told you - I am officially going crazy).

But now back to the pasta. Sweet, delicious pasta. As I was looking over my training guide, I came across this little gem of a statement, "Carbohydrates provide the fuel runners need. During half marathon training, 65% of your total calories should come from carbohydrates." HALLE-freakin'-LLUJAH my friends! I just got a license to make 65% of my diet be composed of carbs (not that I really needed an excuse, but hey, they gave me one). Don't mind if I do! And while the following recipe is probably not what that running guide had in mind, I decided to take a few liberties because I just ran 3 miles and I wanted to celebrate with some cheesy cheese-filled pasta (and really, is there any other way to celebrate such a victory?).

Baked Tortellini (Adapted from a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis)

2 cups store bought marinara sauce
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese
1 pound cheese tortellini (you can also substitute penne or rigatoni if you think the tortellini make the dish too heavy)
2.5 ounces grated smoked gouda
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 2 quart round pyrex baking dish with non-stick cooking spray (if you lack a round pyrex, a brownie pan will also work). Mix sauce and mascarpone in a large bowl. Cook tortellini in large pot of boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and add tortellini to sauce, stirring to coat evenly. Transfer to baking dish and top with grated gouda, mozzarella, and parmesan. Cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes, or until cheese melts.

The deliciously cheesy pasta mixture prior to baking.

The finished product - served with garlic bread to ensure complete carb overload.