You have no reason to adventure one quest behind your level, especially if you're not in kittycore. You have no excuse to do so... Pastamancer allows you to adventure 1 quest higher than you would usually adventure.
Yikes! Ordinarily, I adventure at my quest level. How you're managing to do quests at higher than your level is beyond me. I can never seem to find the Bat Hole while I'm Level 3.
Seriously though, I found BM Pasta to be uncommonly weak from Level 3-6, and I certainly wasn't fighting a
full level ahead. I didn't have the MP to spellsling consistently until Level 7 or so, and my Muscle was too flimsy to let me fight say... Hellions with any reliability until very late Level 6. Both my runs
were way back before all this new-fangled "having chefstaves" and "gaining MP from eating pasta" nonsense. Maybe MP is less of a problem now. [shrug] Obviously, if you can survive it, it makes sense to adventure in the hardest area you have access to. You sound like you're using the Bad Moon adventures much more strategically than I ever did. Brains... bodyguard bats... makes sense now that I hear it.
Entangling 3+cannon 2*7 = 17 mana per adventure. That's 1/2 mmj, or 50 meat, much less than you would gain from an adventure.
Did they change how MMJ works in Badmoon? It never seems to give me anywhere near that much MP. At least... not before Level 20 anyway.