Carb Lover's recipe: Two-cheese penne

I do a fair amount of cooking at home. I've always liked to cook, it just used to involved foods or styles of preparation that were not friendly to the waistline.

I've been following the principles of the Carb Lover's diet since the end of September, with great results (35 lbs lost since starting, 50 lost total). One of the great things about the Carb Lover's book is that it is filled with easy to prepare (AND DELICIOUS) recipes. My "go tos" are things like their black bean or fish tacos, the chicken pasta primavera and the Shrimp Stir-Fry.

The week before my marathon, in an effort to carb load, I wanted to make a new pasta dish. Enter Baked Two-Cheese Penne with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce. Despite the length of the title of this dish, the ingredient list isn't very long, nor is it filled with hard to find items. Although, I did make a few substitutions based on ingredients I had or could easily acquire (see below).

Called for: 1 ounce Smoked Gouda and 2 ounces Fontina cheese
Used: 1 ounce Gouda and 2 ounces light Haverty

Melting the cheeses into the sauce.

Adding the cooked pasta into the sauce.
The recipe called for whole wheat penne and I used whole wheat shells since I had it on hand already.

Roasted red pepper - I roasted my own because the week I made this dish I shopped at Aldi (they didn't have roasted red peppers in a jar) and did not want to make an additional grocery store stop. It looks harder than it was.

Called for: Panko topping
Used: crushed corn flake topping (again, it's what I had on hand)

Served with a side of steamed Brussels sprouts, on a small dinner plate.
Yum!

Overall, it was a great dish and satisfied the "pasta and cheese" craving I was having. Without the red pepper sauce it was a bit bland, but I loved the sauce (blended roasted red pepper and greek yogurt) so it all came together in the end. In fact, I used leftover sauce on a baked potato the same week. Delish!