Spaghetti pie

Ingredients:

• spaghetti or pasta your choice
• 1 small container of ricotta or cottage cheese
• 1 egg (substitute)
• 1 lb of hamburger or ground turkey
• 1 jar of pasta sauce top it off with mozzarella cheese or a low fat cheese if you prefer

Directions: Cook the spaghetti, drain it and place it in a bowl and add either ricotta or cottage cheese to it. I'm leaving out the egg, or you can use an egg substitute for a little additional binding agent for the mix. Once it is all mixed place the spaghetti in a deep pie dish making walls and leaving a nice area in the middle for the sauce and meat of your choice. Brown the meat, drain and add a jar of pasta sauce. Place meat and sauce mixture into the middle of your spaghetti pie as you would any pie filling. Top with cheese. You can add mushrooms or any other spices to your taste. Preheat the oven to 350. Bake until the cheese is nice and melted. Slice the pie up to serve like you would any other pie. Interesting and fun to see a wedge of pasta serve with your choice of veggie and salad.

Overall rating:

• Simplicity: 4
• Taste: 3
• Nutrition: 3

Total rating: 3.5

Wendi's report: This is a recipe that I shared with my hubby and brother and his wife. I actually did not have a deep pie dish so I used a deep casserole dish. As a result the pizza pie ended up a tad on the dry side. (I also think I used too many noodles and not enough sauce.) If I would have used the right pan, I think it would have gone up on the taste scale. This was really easy and while the kids didn't eat it with us (I didn't have it cooked in time for them), Elijah sat on my lap during my meal and went to town on it. He seemed to really enjoy it. We also plan to give them leftovers tomorrow evening. I really enjoyed this recipe and think I would like to try it again with a better pan and maybe more sauce so it wasn't too dry. We did use an egg so Isaac didn't participate in this meal.

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