A Penne For Your Thoughts

My name is Paula and I am a pasta-holic.  And a cheese-aholic.  And a spaghetti sauce-aholic.  So yeah, this recipe pretty much does it for me on every level.  I thought about saving this for Sunday, since the kid is not a fan of Italian sausage and I knew that ground beef would just not be quite as good in here, but instead I hid the sausage wrapper and kept calling it "meat" and she never knew the difference.  Score one for the sneaky chef. = )  The Philadelphia Cooking Creme was a little hard to find (read: they didn't have it at Wal-Mart so I had to make a special trip to Food Lion) but it is what makes this different than plain ole pasta and tomato sauce, so don't try to do without it.  The creaminess it adds makes this taste like it came from an Italian restaurant and not a jar.  I can only imagine how good this would be with homemade spaghetti sauce instead of Ragu, but, yeah, that's not gonna happen any time soon, so meanwhile I'll just stick with the store-bought stuff and fancy it up a little with my new-found friend in the cheese aisle.

Creamy Baked Penne
link to original recipe
Prep time: 15 min  Bake time: 20 min
Serves 6

1/2 lb ground beef or Italian sausage
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup diced green peppers
1 jar(24 oz) spaghetti sauce
1 tub(10 oz) Philadelphia Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme, divided
1 cup shredded Mozzarella, divided
3 cups cooked penne pasta

Heat oven to 350°F.

Brown meat with vegetables in large nonstick skillet. 

Stir in spaghetti sauce, 3/4 cup cooking creme and 1/2 cup mozzarella; cook and stir 2 to 3 min. or until mozzarella is melted. Add pasta; mix lightly. 

Spoon into 2-qt. casserole; top with remaining cooking creme and mozzarella. Cover. 

Bake 20 min. or until heated through, uncovering after 15 min.

604 calories per serving.  Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!