Baked Ziti

Ingredients:

1 box (16 oz) Ziti pasta
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb pork sausage
Salt, black pepper, garlic, red pepper flakes (all to taste)
12 oz cottage cheese (or ricotta if you prefer)
1/2 cup (4 oz) mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
8 slices provolone cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 and grease the bottom and sides of a 9 x 13 casserole dish.- Bring a large pot of water to a boil, season water with salt, boil pasta till al dente; drain and set aside.- Meanwhile brown sausage and ground beef in skillet and season with desired amounts of salt, black pepper, garlic and red pepper flakes. Drain excess grease away from meats and return back to skillet. Add the jar of spaghetti sauce and let simmer until you are ready to assemble the dish.- Place enough sauce mixture on the bottom of the pan so the noodles won’t stick. Then assemble the rest of the dish- half of the cooked noodles, all of the cottage cheese, 4 slices of provolone cheese, 1/2 of the remaining sauce, remaining noodles, half of the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, remaining sauce, remaining cheese.- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Let set 10 minutes to cool before serving.

Lasagna

This is about the easiest recipe of Lasagna that I have ever made. Lenny loves it though. It is very meaty, I think that is his favorite thing about it. I think that next time I will try a little more difficult recipe and see how that turns out.

Ingredients:
4 Lasagna Noodles
1 pound Ground Beef
1 cup Small Curd Cottage Cheese
1/2 jar Spaghetti Sauce
1 bag of Mozzarella Cheese

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add lasagna noodles and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
- In a skillet, brown ground beef. Using a fork, mix cottage cheese.
- In a 8X8 inch baking pan, layer spaghetti sauce, noodles, ground beef and cottage cheese mixture. Two layers of each will fit. Cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove tin foil the last 8 minutes of baking time.

Source: My Tiny Little Kitchen Creations

Baked Penne Marinara

Ingredients:

8 oz penne pasta

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1-2 cups spaghetti sauce

1 Tbls butter

1/3 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

Parmesan cheese

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350.

- Cook and drain pasta and mix with ricotta cheese. Place in bottom of small baking dish.

- Place desired amount of spaghetti sauce over the noodles. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese

- Melt butter in small saucepan (or in the microwave) and mix with breadcrumbs.

- Top spaghetti sauce with breadcrumb mixture and Parmesan cheese (if desired). Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until sauce is bubbly and breadcrumbs are browned.

Alfredo Pasta Bake

This is something that I have seen in several blogs and decided that I wanted to try it. I changed it up a bit so my recipe is a little different from the others, but it was really good. DH was heading to my parents house so I sent some to my mom and she loved it.

Ingredients:

8 oz pasta, cooked and drained

4 cups broccoli florets

1.5 cups chicken, cooked and shredded or diced

1 jar alfredo sauce

1 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups Italian Cheese Mixture

2 Tbls butter

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Coat the bottom of the two small or one medium baking dish with a thin layer of alfredo sauce. In a medium bowl, mix the pasta, broccoli, mushrooms, chicken, garlic and alfredo sauce until combined. Place mixture into baking dish and top with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cut the butter into small pieces and scatter on top of the cheese. Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is hot and bubbly.