The Northern Pasta Co's new cookbook arrives with a recipe that solves a real domestic problem: the graveyard of half-empty pasta bags that accumulates at the back of every cupboard. Pasta mista — the Italian tradition of cooking mismatched shapes together — is the organizing principle here, and it's genuinely liberating once you accept it. The different cooking times don't matter because the pasta finishes in the oven anyway, and the variation in texture is a feature, not a bug. The dish is structurally a béchamel-based baked pasta, but the substitution of 800g of canned white beans (plus their aquafaba) for a portion of the dairy load is the real move. Butter beans, cannellini, or haricot all work; the aquafaba thins the sauce just enough and adds body without heaviness. The result has more protein and more micronutrients than a straight mac and cheese, and the beans disappear into the sauce if you mash them — a useful trick for children who'd object on principle. The recipe is built for efficiency. One pan does the sauce; the pasta pot doubles as the baking dish if it's ovenproof. The 220°C blast for 20 minutes gives you a genuinely crisp top from crushed crisps or crackers — stale ones work better than fresh — without requiring breadcrumbs you may not have. The optional sliced tomato on top is worth doing: it provides acid contrast and keeps the top from going leathery. The cold-brick-fried-for-breakfast suggestion is not a joke. This sets up firm enough to slice, and the fried version has a caramelized exterior that the freshly baked version doesn't. If you're making it for a household with variable schedules, the five-day fridge life and multiple serving modes are genuine practical virtues. The recipe calls for 20g of stale crisps or crackers, or 40g of breadcrumbs — a typical move from a cookbook that takes zero-waste seriously. The 2 tsp of Dijon is listed as optional, but it does real work in the sauce; skip it only if mustard is a genuine dealbreaker. The 300g of mixed pasta feeds four to six depending on what else is on the table.
