Penne with Five Cheeses and a Huge Green Salad

My wonderful friend, Amy, has made this tasty dish a couple times for us over the years, so I finally made it for four tonight. Here is the oozing-with-cheese recipe:

Penne with Five Cheeses (I think it's actually six cheeses, but whatever)

Ingredients:
- kosher salt
- 2 cups of heavy cream
- 1 cup of crushed tomatoes in thick tomato puree
- 1/2 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded Italian fontina (I couldn't find this at my grocery store so like Amy, I used Sargento's Italian mix - it does include fontina)
- 1/2 cup crumbled Gorgonzola
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 T ricotta cheese.
- 1/4 lb. fresh mozzarella
- 6 fresh basil leaves chopped
- 1 lb. penne pasta
- 4 T unsalted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 500 d.
2. Bring 5 quarts of salted water to boil in a stockpot.
3. Combine all ingredients except the penne and butter in a large mixing bowl.
4. Drop the penne into boiling water and boil for 4 minutes.
5. Drain the pasta in a colander and then add to other ingredients in mixing bowl and combine.
6. Pour the entire mix into a baking dish/pyrex pan and dot the top with butter.
7. Bake just 10-15 minutes until bubbly and brown on top.

Fairly easy and deeeelicious, and it serves about 6. I made it with a huge green salad. Sometimes folks think a salad means lettuce and tomato, but to this vegetarian it means everything I have in the house (well, except cheese tonight - that'd be a cheese overload). I then whipped up a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and honey.

A Sunday night salad:
Mixed greens.
Diced tomato.
1 avocado - sliced.
A handful of sliced mushrooms.
1 can of garbanzo beans.
Pineapple chunks.
Chopped celery.
A few T of sesame seeds.
Diced green and yellow pepper.

Funny, while I was cooking tonight I remembered an incident that occurred in the kitchen several years ago when I was living alone in Baltimore County. I left a glass baking dish on one of my burners for a while -- I didn't have much counter space -- and then I turned a different burner on to heat up water in a pot, or so I thought. Suddenly, glass exploded in my face. It was probably the most dangerous thing that had ever happened to me in a kitchen. I'm just glad I was wearing glasses - the glass was everywhere and I had been standing so close to the burners that one shard did graze my face. Ugh, I think I burst into tears. Oy.

Well, cheers to no more kitchen accidents. I no longer leave glass dishes on the stove, that's for sure.