How many times have I cooked pasta? This is new.

I cook often and it is hard to blow my hair back with a recipe but one of my favorites, Melissa Clark did this past week. Do you remember a few years ago a recipe appeared on TikTok and our plates that was basically one step?  It was pasta and cherry tomatoes and Feta cheese in the middle of a baking dish. I wanted to make it recently and Melissa Clark had a version that blew my mind and was better tasting.

 After the tomatoes and cheese bake together in good olive oil and her version of spices, you add a layer of uncooked pasta and pour boiling water over the whole thing. Whaaat? I was instantly dramatic when I read the recipe, immediately thoughts of broken casserole dishes came to mind and overcooked pasta, but I was wrong it was amazing. I have cooked pasta the same way for decades and now I want to experiment. What cheese could I put in the middle? At Grocery Outlet yesterday I was looking at cheeses that would bake well and dreaming asparagus and pea fantasies. It was so FUN to pour boiling water into a casserole and cover with aluminum foil. I want to get daring. Help me here.