Z - Baked Ziti

Simple Kid-friendly meatless dish. We love it!  With a salad and bread, it's makes a wonderful meal.

Baked Ziti

Ingredients:

1 pkg (16 oz.) ziti or small tube pasta
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 carton (15 oz) part-skim ricotta cheese
½ C grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 jar (28 oz) meatless spaghetti sauce
2 C (8 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook pasta according to pkg directions. Drain pasta; set aside. In a bowl, combine the egg, ricotta and ¼ C Parmesan cheese. Spread 1 C spaghetti sauce in a 9x13 baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with a third of the pasta, half of the ricotta mixture, 2/3 C mozzarella cheese, 1 T. Parmesan cheese and 1 C sauce. Repeat layers of pasta, ricotta mixture and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with 2 T. Parmesan cheese. Top with remaining pasta, sauce, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 min or until heated through.

Serving: 12
Recipe Given By: Light & Tasty, Feb/Mar 2004

Pesto Chicken Pasta

Do you need an easy pasta for those hurried nights?
Campbell's has great recipes to try. Here's one of our favorites.

Campbell’s Creamy Pesto Chicken and Bow Ties

Ingredients:

3 C uncooked bow tie pasta
2 T. butter or margarine
1 lb. boneless chicken breasts, cubed
1 can (10 ¾ oz.) cream of chicken soup
½ pesto sauce
½ C milk

Cook pasta according to pkg directions. Drain. Meanwhile, heat butter in skillet. Add chicken and cook until browned, stirring often. Add soup, pesto sauce and milk. Bring to a boil. Cook over low heat 5 minutes or until done. Stir in drained pasta and heat through.

Serves: 4
Recipe Given By: Campbell’s
 

Creamy Fettuccine Alfredo

Here I blogged about one of Rhett's favorite dishes, Chicken Alfredo. He LOVES Macaroni Grill, but I wanted to have a Fettuccine Alfredo that I could call my own. I received a recipe club advertisement in the mail that included the pasta dish so I gave it a try. The results were very good. We decided to add it to our repertoire, although Rhett still claims Macaroni Grill is the best. The night before we had made grilled BBQ Chicken. I just took the skin off, broke it up into pieces and added it to the Alfredo. It was creamy and satisfying! A Keeper!

Creamy Fettuccine Alfredo

Ingredients:

1 C (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 C whipping cream
2 C grated Parmesan Cheese
1 box (1 lb.) fettuccine
1/8 t. salt
1/8 t. black pepper
Fresh basil leaves (we left off this time)

Place the butter in a large heatproof bowl. (I used my kitchen aid mixer bowl.) Using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer set on low speed, beat until smooth. Add the cream and Parmesan cheese. Stir until well blended; set aside.

Bring a large sauce pan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain well and immediately add the hot pasta to the butter mixture in the large bowl. Using two forks, toss the fettuccine in the butter mixture to coat well. Add the salt and pepper.

Divide the pasta between 4 serving plates. Quickly slice the basil into shreds to equal 1/4 C. Sprinkle shredded basil over each serving. Serve immediately.

Serving: 4
Recipe Given By: bigoven.com
Hint: I softened the butter in the microwave. It probably would have been creamier had I softened it on the counter for awhile.

Great Ideas: Stir in crisp bacon or pancetta and sliced mushrooms in when adding the pasta, creating a more hearty, robust dish. (or add leftover chicken like I did!)

Pizza Mac

Ok, this recipe makes me laugh. It came to my home in a Kraft magazine. They entitled the recipe: Pronto Pasta Italiano. Fancy...ooh, la, la. It's pizza mac, folks. Plain old pizza mac. I'm not complaining. I like a good name as much as the next girl, but it made me giggle. Not gonna lie.

Pizza Mac

Ingredients:

1 pkg. (14 oz) Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1 C. pizza sauce
1/2 C. Kraft 2 % Milk Shredded Italian Three Cheese Blend

Prepare dinner as directed on package. Meanwhile, brown meat in large skillet. Add dinner and pizza sauce; mix lightly. Sprinkle with shredded cheese; cover. Cook on low heat 2 min. or until shredded cheese begins to melt.

Serving Suggestion: Serve with a mixed green salad tossed with Kraft Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.

Serving: 4 (1 1/2 C. each)
Recipe Given By: Kraft Recipes.com

Our family like this recipe "ok" - maybe a 3 out of 5. We thought it tasted a lot like our pizza spread which is a lot more fun to eat. It was fun giving this a try, but it won't be sticking around.

Egg Noodle Lasagna

Although this dish below looks yummy our family didn't really care for it. It was a little too dry and we're not big "Velveeta in casserole" fans.

If you think the dish sounds good, please, give it a try. You may want to add another jar of spaghetti sauce. That would make it less lasagna-like, but would also moisten the dish. So far I haven't found a crockpot lasagna that my family likes. If you have a good recipe, please share!

*Ha, you may laugh at me. I didn't measure out the noodles when I made this. I just cooked up a bag-full and put it in. Measuring might have made the difference in dry/moist. Who knows. I'm just a home cook, y'all.

Egg Noodle Lasagna

Ingredients:

6 1/2 C uncooked wide egg noodles
3 T. butter or margarine
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
2 1/4 C spaghetti sauce
6 oz. process cheese (Velveeta), cubed
3 C. (12 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook noodles according to package directions; drain. Add butter and toss to coat. In a skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Spread a fourth of the spaghetti sauce in an ungreased 5-qt. slow cooker. Layer with a third of the noodles, a third of the beef, a third of the remaining sauce and a third of the cheeses. Repeat layers twice.

Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or until cheese is melted and lasagna is heated through.

Serving: 12-16 servings
Recipe Given By: Taste of Home

Easy Chicken and Noodles

We had a new quick and easy dinner last night. While I was cooking I was composing a blog in my head...this is crazy! Anyway, I don't have a lot of easy throw-together meals so I'm trying to expand on that. This is one recipe that will be added to the books! It was creamy & yummy!

Easy Chicken and Noodles
Ingredients:
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
3/4 C milk
1/3 C grated Parmesan cheese
1/8 t. pepper
3 C cooked wide egg noodles
2 C cubed cooked chicken

In a saucepan, combine the soup, milk, Parmesan cheese and pepper. Stir in the noodles and chicken; heat through.

Yield: 4 servings
Recipe Given By: Quick Cooking Nov/Dec 2000 (been in the files awhile!)

Hints: I doubled everything, except the chicken. I only had 3 C of cubed chicken (two boneless breasts) and I liked the proportions perfectly. (hence, the creaminess!) I cooked the noodles and drained them. While they were draining I put the rest of the ingredients into the noodle pot and combined, then added the noodles back to the pot - a true one-pot meal!

(Being a food photographer is harder than it looks!)