Marzetti

This is a meal I grew up on and love!  It's pretty much your basic Italian meal...noodles, sauce, meat and cheese.  I love it because it's simple and easy to prepare and the leftovers taste even better than the original thing!

So I have to admit, I actually never liked it growing up because my mom always used Swiss cheese on top and I'm just not a fan of Swiss cheese!  (Sorry mom!)  Well I tried making it once with mozzarella and I was in love!

And here's how it is done =)

The ingredients:

1 bag of egg noodles (cooked and strained)
1-2 lb of ground beef (or ground turkey if you like)
1/2 onion if you like
1 can (26 oz or more) of spaghetti sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (or swiss if you're a fan)
A little sugar (yes sugar)
and a little water

First prep the ingredients by cooking your noodles and ground beef.  I cook the onions in with the ground beef.

Once the meat and onions are fully cooked, be sure to drain off all of the fat

Then you just layer the ingredients:  noodles...

then ground beef/onions...

then sauce...

then add in a little bit of water...

and a teaspoon or so of sugar...weird I know...

and finally cover with cheese.

Into the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and that's it!  This is what it looks like before going in to the oven:

I actually decided to divide my batch in half.  We can never finish a whole pan of this stuff before we're sick of it (because it makes a TON of yummy leftovers), so by splitting the batch, we had another meal pre-made in the freezer!

Here's my second dish.

If you decide to pre-make and freeze, just add about 15-20 minutes to the cook time and you're set!

And here's our meal once again!

Enjoy!!