I am working on a pasta e fagioli dish for backpacking. I will make the dish fresh, dehydrate it, and then reconstitute it. It only will have beans, veggies, seasonings and pasta. I can post here on how it goes. I realize this is different than your problem. You can probably turn your meal into a Mac and cheese soup by adding water to it though. You will probably have to forget about it being a pie, and if there is a pie crust then maybe making it into a soup is not a good idea. Or who knows? grind the whole thing in the food processor, add a bit of broth or milk, some seasonings, and get cream of Mac and cheese soup.

I know I'm too late with this and it's not T&T (by me), but when I saw it, I thought it sounded like what you described :) ZUPPA DI FAGIOLI CON LA PASTA (PASTA AND BEAN SOUP) Source: teriskitchen.com SERVES 4-6 In our house this is known as "Pasta Fazool". My first introduction to this hearty Italian soup was from some Italian friends. This is my version. It takes some work to make, but the results are so rewarding. INGREDIENTS * 2 smoked ham hocks * 2 quarts water * 1 cup dry white beans, such as Great Northern * 1/8 pound (2 ounces) fat back, rinsed of salt * 1/2 cup chopped onions * 1/2 cup chopped celery * 4 large cloves garlic, chopped (more, if desired) * 2 tablespoons olive oil * 2 cups dried tubular pasta, such as ditalini, elbows or small shells * Salt and pepper to taste * Freshly grated Parmesan cheese Cook the ham hocks in 2 cups water until tender, about 2 hours. Remove meat from bones, disgarding fat, and chop. Reserve liquid. In a 4-quart saucepan, bring beans and 2-quarts water to a boil for 2 minutes. Remove from burner and let soak, covered, for 20 minutes. Drain beans, reserving liquid and adding enough fresh water to the liquid to make 2 quarts. Meanwhile, chop fat back, onions, celery and garlic into a paste (called a battuto); this can be done with a large chef's knife or in the food processor. Heat olive oil in a large kettle over medium heat. Add the battuto and cook until the fat is completely rendered and just starting to turn golden, about 10 minutes, being careful not to brown. Add the beans, reserved bean cooking liquid, ham and ham cooking liquid to the kettle. Bring to a boil, reduce and simmer, covered, until beans are tender, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Skim fat from top of soup, but not all. (Can be prepared to this point several hours before serving or several days and refrigerated.) Before serving, bring soup back to a boil; add pasta and simmer, covered, until tender, about 10 minutes, depending on pasta used. (If soup appears too liquid, remove the lid; if soups appears too thick while pasta is cooking, add extra liquid.) Taste for seasoning. Serve immediately, passing Parmesan cheese. Notes: The fat back used in this recipe is the type with no meat. If unavailable, use salt pork but remove all meat and reserve for another time. For those who are highly fat conscious, the fat back can be omitted. You will still have a very good soup. You will need to use your judgment on the amounts of pasta and liquid needed, as beans do not always soak up the same amount depending on their age and dryness. This soup should be thick, but it is best with some liquid. Leftover soup reheats very well and may taste better than the original. However, more liquid may need to be added as the beans and pasta soak up additional liquid in reheating. Cindy

I too have been making both pasta and egg noodles for a very long time. I use a hand crank - the Atlas Marcato Wellness. I make the dough in a food processor which takes me no longer than 5 minutes from adding the ingredients to forming a ball with my hands and wrapping it to let it rest. BTW, hand 'crank' is misleading as it sounds as if you are working hard. Nope. It's easy to run pasta through the hand crank. Kneading is done on the pasta machine at the thickest setting, 2-3 runs, then you begin making thinner and thinner dough, depending on what you are making. For 2 batches of dough, enough for 4 - 6 people or servings, it takes me a total of 15-20 minutes to knead, stretch, run through the cutters, and hang on my trees and chopsticks. It's fast and easy. The only additional time is the 30 minute rest (outside the fridge, never in), which I use for other things such as sauces, and to quickly set up my machine. On the Atlas, the cutters are just in front of the rollers, so I roll, then run through the cutter, swapping the crank handle to one then the other. Plllog is correct, you do not wash pasta machines. They will rust at some point and clog your machine with dried glue-dough. Your dough should not require an extra dusting of flour when putting it through any machine, hand crank or electric. A simple soft pastry brush will dust off any small excess, while a soft cloth is used to rub away any smudges of olive oil. Waxed paper can be doubled and run through the cutters for best cleaning. No water is used to clean them. You should not have dough anywhere using these methods. Egg noodles are wider and tend to have more egg in them. I add an egg yolk or two to my flour mixture and use only wheat flour, oil, water, and a bit of salt (you can go salt-free). You can add rice flour which will add to the stretch, though I almost never do. I add it only to potsticker doughs and such. Italian Pasta (my neighbor was from Sicily and very particular about pasta) uses a mixture of semolina flour, wheat flour, whole egg, oil, water, and a pinch of salt. I use less semolina than my neighbor did as I have a hard time with the dryer dough breaking off as it's drying. Both have eggs, it's the amount of egg. Freshly made noodles require a slightly short cooking time. Otherwise, you dry your noodles (of whatever thickness and width your wish for your specific dishes) on chopsticks weighted and hanging over a counters, on pasta trees, or whatever you can make up. For egg noodles in chicken soup I will place them on a very lightly dusted flour cookie sheet - and once dried, dump the whole lot into a freezer bag, then add the whole lot to my stock - the small bit of extra flour tends to give a very slight body to the chicken and noodles stock. Otherwise, extra flour is not ever needed. One day drying is often sufficient. The noodles can then be places in a sealed bag and frozen. You boil them (egg or pasta noodles) from frozen, never thawing them or they will be gummy. If you choose to freeze, they still have the homemade taste and quality of fresh made noodles. Not like store bought. There is a difference. The different doughs have nothing to do with what part of the US you live in. I live in the South East. Dough differences have to do with preferences, or egg vs. Italian. Many pastas are also hand formed. That is time-consuming, and a labor of love, but often worth it as they hold sauces nicely. I'm no pasta machine snob, other than I don't want those nasty grayish streaks in my pasta (coming off poor quality metals). Electric or hand, either works fine. Both have various cutters. Whichever you get, enjoy! Adding beet juice, fresh herbs to the dough as you process or mix it adds lovely flavor when desired.

Sorry for the long hiatus in getting back to this post. After some initial research, I may have been mistaken calling the one kind of pasta I find most versatile "rotini" because apparently that's not Italian, and the correct nomenclature is "fusilli." Anyway, what I am talking about is the loose spiral pasta, not the tighter version. That would not be very good for a noodle pudding. FOAS, that post on cascatelli was very interesting. I have not seen it around, but I could special order some I suppose. A dish I like but rarely make is "skillet lasagna" which you can make many ways. I like to make it with pasta in the shape of small wavy lasagna strips. I used to think that was called "tagliatelli" but now I see that tagliatelli does not have the wavy sides, and that it is called maybe "mafalda." I eat past a LOT and enjoy pairing shapes with sauces and themes. So here's my noodle pudding recipe, which I know as "lokshen kugel" although when my grandmother made that, she just mixed a little cinnamon sugar with some of her little home made egg noodles and cottage cheese. One could use fusilli or other pasta but it wouldn't be quite the same. I usually use med. egg noodles. Not the most wide or the thinnest, I go for middle of the road. I like the pudding with raisins but Dad doesn't so I usually add a small can of crushed pineapple if I want to snazz it up. It seems overly creamy but it sets up over time. In fact, you often have to add more milk to reheat the leftovers. Creamy Noodle Pudding 8 ounces medium egg noodles 3 eggs, well beaten 1/3 cup sugar, heaping if you like sweeter pudding 1/2 lb. cottage cheese salt to taste 3 oz cream cheese (can use neufchatel) i pint sour cream 1 tsp. vanilla 1 cup milk Combine all ingredients except noodles in a large bowl. Parboil the noodles and add to the mixture. Butter a baking dish and put the mixture in (I think I use an 11.x 13 pyrex one) Bake at 350 for i hour. I top with a dusting of cinnamon sugar. Let sit at least 10 min. before serving. Serves 8-10.