Ground Beef and Macaroni Bake

Tonight was my first dinner with a guest, Kevin!  I wanted to make something impressive, so I got out my Culinary Arts Institute cookbook.  (It's very fancy.)  I found a ground beef and macaroni bake with tomato sauce and cream cheese, sour cream, and cottage cheese.  (Which functioned the same as ricotta cheese.)  It was great!  There was a little trouble blending the cheeses and sour cream, but that's probably because I put the cream cheese in the mixer first and there wasn't enough liquid at the bottom... whoops!  I ended up just mixing the concoction together with a spoon.  All in all, it came out wonderful and decided to make some green beans as a side to counteract all the cheese and macaroni.

Before going into the oven.

After baking for an hour.  

Ground Beef and Macaroni Bake

Ingredients:
1/2 pound ziti noodles
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
1 carton (16 oz.) cottage cheese
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1 pound ground beef
1 24 oz. can tomato sauce
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp. garlic powder

Preparation: 
Preheat oven to 350.
Cook noodles until tender.
Place half the noodles in greased baking dish.
Meanwhile, with a mixer, beat together cream cheese, cottage cheese, and sour cream.  Pour over macaroni.  Sprinkle remaining macaroni over cheese mixture.
Brown ground beef in skillet, drain off excess fat.  Stir in tomato sauce and garlic.
Pour meat mixture on top of noodles.  Sprinkle with parmesan.
Bake, uncovered for 50-60 minutes, or until heated through.
Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from The Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook