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Cost: $ $ $ $ $

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Time: 30 mins

Yummy, cheesy, fatty goodness
Super tasty, fairly cheap, very easy dish that my friend taught me how to make. Beware though- this sucker is fattening! This is also easily doubled or tripled for lots of people. Serve it with a simple salad and, voila! Dinner is served :)

Posted by Hypergraphia from U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado, United States • Published 18th December 2009 • See Hypergraphia's 40 projects »

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cristinakilljoyway favorited Cheesy Pasta Dish 29 Dec 20:47

Step 1
Gather all of your ingredients.

Start with the mozzarella cheese:
I used Fresh and Easy Whole Milk Mozzarella. Personally, I like the consistency and texture of this mozzarella, but you can make it with wet, block, low fat, or shredded. Pretty much what ever you have on hand :)
Step 2
Cut it in half
Step 3
Roughly chop each half
Step 4
Grab your sauce. I use the Classico Four Cheese Alfredo, since its not very salty. Again, use what ever you have on hand :)
Step 5
Grab your Parmesan. I used Fresh and Easy Shredded Parmesan.
Step 6
Dump your sauce into a sauce pan and add HALF of the mozzarella (save the other half for later)
Step 7
Add a generous pinch of Parmesan (or more, if you want the sauce to be very rich!)
Step 8
Turn on the heat, to medium.
Step 9
Heat a pot of salted water.
Step 10
While your waiting for both the sauce and the water to heat up, pull out your pan. I used a 9 X 13 glass dish, but I have made this with an 8 X 8.
Step 11
Pasta! Again I used Fresh and Easy Bow Ties (if you can't tell, I made a trip to F&E and grabbed all of the ingredients there, LOL). This dish is really yummy with bow ties, spirals, or shells. Basically, any pasta that the sauce will "stick" to.

Once the water comes to a boil, add the pasta.
Step 12
So this was hard to get a picture of but... you want to stir the sauce a lot so that none of it settles to the bottom and starts to burn. The sauce will be done when it gets "stringy" (which I tried to capture in the picture). Basically, you want the mozzarella and Parmesan to be incorporated into the sauce. You can leave it "chunky" if you want, you'll just have big chunks of cheese (which doesn't sound too bad!)

***You can cook the pasta in advance, but the pasta and the sauce take about the same amount of time to cook. While your at the stove, why not kill two birds, eh?
Step 13
Keep an eye on the pasta at the same time, occasionally stirring. Cook until the pasta is al dente, or slightly under cooked. (If you cook it all the way through, thats fine. The pasta will be cooked again, in the oven. Keeping it al dente keeps the pasta from getting too soft)
Step 14
When the pasta is done, grab your colander
Step 15
Strain your pasta. DO NOT RINSE. Shake the excess water off the pasta.
Step 16
Dump the pasta in your Pam'ed dish
Step 17
Pour the cheesy sauce over the pasta.
Step 18
Scrape down the pot, getting all that cheesy goodness on there!
Step 19
Spread the sauce, covering the top. You can toss the pasta in the sauce, but its not necessary. The sauce filters down when you cook it.
Step 20
Drop the other half of the mozzarella from earlier onto the sauced pasta. This doesn't have to be perfect, just space it out.
Step 21
Sprinkle Parmesan onto the dish. Put on as much or as little as you want! I put on lots since Parmesan isn't tooo bad (>.<) as far as cheeses go.
Step 22
This is what mine looked like pre-baked.
Step 23
Put it in the oven. And importantly, do not preheat! Turn on the oven to 350 degrees and bake. Bake for around 10 minutes.
Step 24
This is about 8 minutes in :) mmmm bubbly and yummy looking!
Step 25
This is 10 minuted of baking. I do like mine to be a bit browner on top, but I needed to reheat it later for dinner, so I just cooked it a little :)
Step 26
Yumm, all done!

This dish is also very tasty with veggies or shrimp. I don't eat land meats, but I'm sure chicken, pork, or even beef would be good too. Just add the veggie or protein when you mix the pasta, sauce, and cheese.

Enjoy!