Kim is our friend. And this is actually her grandmother’s recipe. It’s a very old school Italian dish—hearty and filling. Perfect for a fall or winter evening. The main ingredients (besides the pasta) are carrots, celery and onions, which is the classic combination for starting any soup or meat dish. So, while you may not necessarily think of eating carrots and celery with pasta, trust me, the flavors work. One of the best things about this recipe is that it’s easy to scale up or down based on the number of people you’re serving, or how much leftovers you want. The dish might even be better the next day. Might. There is a reason this dish is called “yummy.”

Given the substantive nature of this dish, rigatoni or penne pasta works best—easy to scoop up all the goodness! Plus, the large diameter, combined with the ridges, makes them ideal to retain sauces on the entire surface, inside and out.

Two side notes about the pasta: Recently we’ve been going “sauce heavy” and “pasta light” with our pasta meals. All that talk about too much pasta not being good for you, blah blah blah. The recipe calls for 1 pound of pasta, but feel free to add more or less depending on your taste.

Also, for the past several years we’ve been using Barilla Plus Pasta (in the yellow box). It is a multigrain pasta with extra protein and ALA Omega-3 (whatever that is). Honestly, we can’t tell the difference between this and regular pasta. We’ve tried other wholegrain/multigrain pastas and like the Barilla Plus the best. (The Healthy Request in the brown box was our least favorite by a landslide!)

Manga!