Meal Deals: Baked Penne Recipe

I told you how I scored Free Pasta and Free Prego at Albertsons this week HERE and HERE. One meal that is a family favorite (from my friend Ivy who is a wonderful cook) is Baked Penne. It's like lasagna but a million times easier (and just as good). Here's what I started with (1 lb. ground beef and dried minced onion not shown, it just looks yucky in pictures, at least to me):

First cook penne noodles as directed on the package. While the pasta is cooking brown the beef with minced onion (or whatever you like to season it with). In the meantime add the cottage cheese, 3/4 cup parmesan, 1 cup mozarella and 1 cup cheddar cheese in a bowl and mix it up.

Once the noodles are done drain the water and add the pasta sauce and meat. Mix well so the noodles are coated with sauce:

In a 9x13" baking dish layer 1/2 of the noodles:

Then the entire cottage cheese/cheese mixture:

And the rest of the noodles:

And some more cheese to make it look pretty:

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes & this is what you will have:

Yumminess! Seriously though, this one is so easy (and impressive).

We had salad and garlic bread with it. I recruited my little helper A.K.A. Bree to butter the bread:

Everything except the cottage cheese was purchased with coupons and/or on sale. The whole meal was definitely a deal at less than $5 (and that makes me happy). Enjoy!