Kindness Is Baked Rotini

While we were so busy keeping up with little girls, I was still cooking. Just didn't have time to post the recipes. But I did try to make photos as we went so that I could share them later. I'll be caught up soon.

This baked rotini is a dish that a friend brought to Mommy's house when Mommy was in the hospital for weeks just before Baby Girl was born. Comfort food to the max. So in my mind, it will always be linked to kindness. What a good way to remember a recipe. Around here we will probably call it "Carla's Pasta" forever.

I made Carla's recipe for Mommy and girls as their last supper here before the car was packed (to the gills!) the next morning and they all headed to the new house. Big Sister got back from her summer travels just in time for supper. She liked this recipe so much that she had it for breakfast the next morning.

I think it would be a great dish for feeding youth groups, too. It is simple, basic food. Not too much in it that kids would dislike. It makes a big dish. Mine was full to the top.

Here is the recipe just as Carla shared it:

ROTINI NOODLES WITH BEEF

1 box rotini noodles (mine was 16 oz)
1 large jar spaghetti sauce
1 (8-oz) container sour cream or plain yogurt (optional)
1 (15-oz) container cottage cheese
3/4 to 1 lb. ground beef (my package was 1.4 lbs)
lots of Mozzarella cheese
salt & pepper to taste (I left this out)

Brown ground beef and drain. Add sauce. Mix together sour cream and cottage cheese. Cook noodles until done. Basically, put this together the way your would do lasagna. Put one half of the meat mixture in the bottom of (9x13-in) pan, then layer of noodles, then half the cottage cheese mixture, then sprinkle with cheese. Repeat steps above adding lots of mozzarella on top.

Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Take out of oven, remove cover and bake for 15 minutes more.


Now, you know I tend to redo recipes slightly. The only things I changed here was that I used more meat and I arranged my layers differently. I put a small amount of meat sauce in the bottom, then layered noodles, cottage cheese, meat sauce. Second layer of noodles, cottage cheese, meat sauce. Then topped with Mozzarella. But I don't think it would matter a bit how you do it.

When I removed the foil from the dish, some of the cheese stuck to it. Might want to lightly spray the foil with PAM to keep it from sticking.

I also assembled this earlier in the day and baked it at supper time. I added about 5 more minutes to the cooking time since it was coming out of the refrigerator.

I put a couple of individual size dishes (after it was baked) of this in the freezer for Daddy-O to pull out later.