Last night I was once again on the hunt for something to fix for dinner. Given that my personal recipe book doesn’t contain a lot of healthy options I needed to search the web to find something that would suit my taste buds. Well I was looking through the healthy section on Food Networks site and I came across an Italian dish. In my opinion you can never go wrong with Italian and when it says it healthy, even better.
Four Cheese Baked Penne Pasta
Ingredients
1 lb Whole wheat pasta
1 1/2 c Small curd low fat cottage cheese
1 c part skim ricotta cheese (I used fat free)
1 1/4 c Shredded part skin mozzarella cheese
3 Tbs Chopped parsley
2 tsp Olive oil
1 Medium onion, chopped
4 Clove garlic, finely chopped
1 (15 oz) Can of low sodium crushed tomatoes
1 (8 oz) Can of low sodium tomato sauce
1 tsp Dried oregano
1 tsp Dried rosemary
1/2 tsp Chili flakes
3/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/4 c Grated parmesan
Direction:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Combine the cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, 1/2 c mozzarella cheese and parsley in a bowl and stir with a fork to incorporate and set aside. Cook pasta until tender but stir firm, approximately 2 minutes less than the package states.
3. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook while stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds more. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano, rosemary, chili flake, salt and pepper. Bring this to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Add sauce to the cooked pasta and then add in the cottage cheese mixture and combine. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish and transfer ingredients. Top with the remaining 3/4 c of mozzarella cheese and the parmesan. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted or about 30 minutes.
I want to thank food.com for this recipe because it will be something I fix many times over.
