From books and a restaurant to a cookware line and three kids, Ayesha Curry has a pretty full plate and her latest cookbook reflects the type of meals she can easily make at home to feed a family.
Curry joined "Good Morning America" on Tuesday to chat "The Full Plate: Flavor-Filled, Easy Recipes for Families with No Time and a Lot to Do" and shared a recipe for a pasta bake.
"I really encourage people to cook with their kids, cause one you're building memories, two they're getting those basic kitchen skills, and three they'll be more apt to try whatever it is they're making," she explained.
Check out her full rustic lamb pasta bake below and recreate the recipe for your family at home.
"This crowd-pleasing meal is hearty and incredibly satisfying, but still quick enough to be able to throw together for a weeknight dinner, and substantial enough to provide leftovers for the next day," Curry writes in the book. "I like to dollop on the ricotta instead of stirring it into the sauce, so the pasta is studded with depth charges of cheese. If you don’t care for ground lamb, you can use ground beef or (uncased) sausage instead. Serve with a big green salad and some crusty bread."
Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the baking dish
2 medium onions, diced
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 pounds ground lamb
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 (24-ounce) jar marinara sauce
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
1½ pounds short dry pasta of your choice (such as rigatoni, fusilli, or penne)
1 cup fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
1 (15-ounce) container whole-milk ricotta
2 cups grated Parmigiano- Reggiano
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.
In a deep skillet over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Add the onions and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more. Add the lamb, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and oregano and cook, stirring and breaking up the chunks of lamb, until the meat is no longer pink, about 7 minutes.
Reduce the heat to medium, stir in the marinara sauce and tomato sauce, and mix to combine. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.
Drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook for 2 minutes less than directed on the package. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Return the pasta to the pot, add the meat sauce and half of the reserved pasta water, and stir to mix. Stir in the basil, and add more of the pasta cooking liquid as needed so the sauce coats the pasta.
Transfer to a greased 8- by 11-inch glass or ceramic baking dish and dollop the ricotta over the top, spacing it evenly and pressing the ricotta down slightly into the pasta. Sprinkle the Parmigiano over the top. Bake for 25 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown. Serve hot.
Excerpted from THE FULL PLATE. Copyright © 2020 by Ayesha Curry. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.