This month I taught a food storage class on pasta, and we had a lot of fun trying new recipes and ways to use the pasta in our food storage. I have had this recipe book marked from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe for almost a year now, and for some reason had never tried it, until this month. I was skeptical at this recipe and the Mexican flavors over pasta. Something about it didn’t seem to go together to me, but because all of Melanie’s recipes are so good, I figured it was worth trying.
I really was pleasantly surprised at how delicious this recipe was, and how unique the flavors were. Surprisingly the sauce was the perfect match with the penne pasta and the fresh vegetables broke up the creamy sauce, so it wasn’t too heavy. I followed Melanie’s recipe pretty closely except for I added twice as much cumin, a few tablespoons of lime juice, an extra can of diced green chilies, and added green onions to the pasta. It would have been wonderful without these changes, but the touch of lime and a little more seasoning really made this dish a 10. If you are bored of spaghetti sauce on your noodles, give this recipe a try for your next fiesta!
