Pastitsio

Well, this past Monday I was called into work so sadly I wasn't able to experience the entire New Food Monday event.  I took Matt's suggestion and made pastitsio.  The recipes I found weren't exactly what he remembered, but he enjoyed it anyway.  The reviews were again mostly positive.  That's three weeks in a row...must be a new record!   #1 was put off once he found out there was some sort of tomato based sauce involved.  He did, however, eat quite a bit of the lettuce I had intended to make into a salad.  #2 ate ALL of his while #3 ate just a few bites.  I missed #4 trying hers but, from what I was told, she gobbled it up.  Matt took a picture so I could get a glimpse of how much she enjoyed her meal.  She's actually joining me in some leftovers as I type.  The most frequent comments involved the amount of cinnamon in the dish.  As for me, I really enjoyed what was, to me, a Greek version of the lasagna and baked ziti we ate growing up.  As you can tell, the recipe made a lot!  I decided to freeze half of the leftovers for one of those nights when I have no clue what to make for dinner.

I based my version on the following two recipes:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/pastitsio-recipe/index.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-specials/pastitsio-recipe2/index.html

I reduced the cinnamon and onion (in Ina's recipe) by half and used tomato puree rather than crushed since we have an issue with tomato (and onion) chunks in our house.  I went with rigatoni but might try lasagna noodles the next time.  I went ahead and followed Ina Garten's recipe for the bechamel which was yum but you could probably tweak it to make a lower fat version.  I just love getting to sneak sips of heavy cream.  Now I just need to figure out next week...