Spaghetti with a twist

When Matthew was born we were so blessed by friends from our play group, MOPS, and from church with about 3 weeks worth of food---It was so nice to not have to worry about cooking or shopping for food (or cleaning up for that matter)!

One of our favorites was a baked spaghetti that a neighbor and friend from church made. She posted the recipe on our MOPS blog so I thought I would share it too. I made it this week for Macy and I to eat on for the next several days (it is amazing how little of food we go through when Mark isn't eating here)! You can use canned sauce but I actually found a recipe of allrecipes.com for homemade tomato sauce and since I had about 20 tomatoes from our garden I thought I would give it a try. It was so tasty and worth the 4 hours of cooking time. The smell of it even woke Macy up from her nap...she asked "Mommy, what are you cooking? It smells GOOOOD!!!" So cute!

My friend, Lori, said that you can make these up ahead of time and freeze them and they turn out great. I made extra sauce and froze it so next time all I have to do is cook the noodles and combine the stuff. Also, if you use whole wheat pasta, lean beef or turkey and low fat cottage cheese it is a pretty healthy dinner. I also make my sauce with diced up carrots and celery so it even had veggies - super easy way to sneak them into husbands and kids! ha!

ENJOY!

Spaghetti Pie

16 oz spaghetti, cooked al dente
1/4 c margarine
1 egg slightly beaten
1/2-3/4 c parmesan cheese
16 oz cottage cheese
1/2 pound ground beef, browned with 1/2 onion and drained
1 jar spaghetti sauce
Shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook spaghetti and drain, melt in the margarine, add egg and parmesan cheese and mix well. Press this mixture into a greased, 9x13 pan. Spoon cottage cheese over top evenly. Crumble ground beef over top. Season with salt and pepper. Spread sauce over evenly. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes until center is hot. Remove foil, top with mozzarella cheese and return to oven until melted.

Variations: For a vegetarian dish, omit gr beef and add a layer of spinach (be sure to squeeze out as much water as possible) thinly sliced zucchini are good and so are black olives.

If you have a small family, make two 8x8 casseroles and freeze one. Be sure to put saran wrap over the pie before the aluminum foil or the sauce will eat the foil. Allow a frozen pie to sit in the fridge overnight to thaw and it might take a few more minutes to bake.