la.foodblogging

Apparently, very hard…

Even out in the middle of nowhere, I find myself in the company of good cooks. My friend Katie held a dinner party and impressed us all with a Mostaccioli Bake. She admitted to me later that this was actually an easy recipe to follow, and she grabbed it from the District 66 Cookbook. (Whatever that is…) She was kind enough to share this recipe with me, and I gave it a try. Even though I wound up changing the recipe a bit, it still turned out deliciously. Below is the actual recipe Katie gave me. Following the recipe, is what I wound up doing, and the photo to prove that it looked fine. (As for taste, you’re just going to have to take my word for how good it turned out.)

Ingredients:
1/2 lb ground beef, 1/2 cup chopped green pepper, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 2 cups (1 lb) stewed tomatoes, 6 oz can of tomato paste, 1/2 cup water, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 8 oz cookied mostaccioli, and 1/2 lb sliced velveeta cheese. (Optional: parmasean cheese to taste.)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown meat. Add chopped onion and pepper. Cook until tender. Stire in tomatoes, paste, water, and seasonings. In a 2-quart casserole, layer pasta, sauce and cheese. Repeat. Sprinkle with parmasean cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

Seems simple enough… I wound up varying from the ingredients a bit because I’m on a budget and just wanted to use what I had in stock. First of all, I browned the beef and threw in the onions. Then, I opened up my last jar of Trader Joe’s roasted peppers tomato sauce. (For those who have not been keeping up with my posts or are new to la.foodblogging, the nearest TJ’s to me is about 103 miles away from me, so for me to use any TJ product is a big deal.) I poured in about half the jar, then put in one can (1 cup) of stewed tomatoes instead of two. I had checked with Katie, who said if I were to substitute tomato sauce for paste, I needed to reduce my stewed tomatoes byhalf. I also substituted penne pasta for mostaccioli.

Then I found out that I didn’t have a two quart casserole dish. What I decided to do was just dump all the penne in the dish evenly. Next, I poured the beef and tomato sauce over the penne. When I went grocery shopping, I didn’t see any velveeta, so I just bought some shredded mozarella instead, which is what I used to top my dish. Thew the whole thing in the oven, and half an hour later, it resembled what Katie made.

I scooped out one serving so you can get a peek at the interior. The cheese on top was nice and gooey, the onions crisp, and the penne al dente. Now that I’ve kind of made it for myself, I see that Katie is truly a genius. This really is a basic pasta with tomato sauce recipe. The whole prep work took me about half an hour to prepare, and after that it’s just half an hour in the oven. Easy to do but looks ever so impressive.

By Pauline (see more of her posts).