Thank you to Kraft Foods for offering me the opportunity to recreate a recipe with PHILADELPHIA Cooking Creme. Please click here to learn more about all the PHILADELPHIA Cooking Creme flavors and recipes.
Baked Penne with Beef
You know I’m all about simple meals.
Keeping things simple in the kitchen is the best way I’ve found to make family mealtime consistent.
I recently tried out Philadelphia Cooking Creme (Italian Cheese and Herb) in a recipe.
Ummm . . . yummm!
It seems like cream cheese is the secret ingredient in all of my favorite recipes! The cooking creme, especially this one that already has Italian flavor, gives that creamy texture my family loves and makes those types of recipes ever so much easier to create. It melts and blends more quickly than cream cheese, which is good for this mama who is always rushing around in that crazy hour before the family starts begging to eat!
Last Thursday, I re-created Kraft Foods’ Baked Penne with Beef recipe.
The verdict? My family LOVED it. Everyone gave the meal a thumbs up, and all but one child asked for seconds.
And how easy was it? Very. (Especially since I used pre-cooked ground beef.) It was mostly just a matter of boiling the pasta, combining the ingredients in a skillet, and putting them in a casserole dish to bake for 20 minutes.
The recipe did call for green peppers. I am so thankful to have a husband who agrees whole-heartedly with me on this: No green peppers shall ever be used in this house.
I know some people love them. We don’t. I just left them out. They weren’t a crucial ingredient, and I have no qualms whatsoever about changing up recipes to fit our family’s tastes!
Baked Penne with Beef
What You Need:
1/2 lb extra-lean ground beef (Hubby requested that I add more beef next time.)
1/2 cup each chopped onions and green peppers
One jar (24 oz.) spaghetti sauce
One tub (10 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme, divided
One cup KRAFT Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, divided
Three cups cooked penne pasta
Make it:
Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
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 minutes or until mozzarella is melted. Add pasta; mix lightly.
Spoon into 2-qt casserole; top with remaining cooking creme and mozzarella. Cover.
Bake 20 minutes or until heated through, uncovering after 15 min.
This recipe is truly simple and quite forgiving! I realized as I typed up the directions that I added the pasta before the cooking creme, “dumped” into the casserole dish instead of “spooned” and it turned out just fine!
I also didn’t cover it while in the oven. This scatter-brained mama needs recipes that are simple enough to handle some unintentional adjustments!
Here’s a video where I share my opinion of this easy recipe:
If you can’t see the video, click here to watch it on YouTube.
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Nutrition Information Per Serving
370 calories, 15g total fat, 7g saturated fat, 990mg sodium, 37g carbohydrate, 22g protein
Thank you again to Kraft Foods for sponsoring this blog post. I was selected as one of 20 bloggers by Technorati Media and Clever Girls Collective to participate in the Kraft Foods PHILADELPHIA Cooking Creme signature recipes campaign. While I have been compensated for my time and received the product, my opinions and experiences are my own.
How EASY! And it sounds fabulous. I adore anything with cream cheese.
Dumped, spooned… what’s the difference? 🙂 Looks good. My family is crazy about pasta. And being carb addicts, they really shouldn’t get near it. But we do splurge occasionally.
We are pepper fans here. They are so good for you — high in Vitamin C and in general high in antioxidants. I guess if you hate them, no matter of nutritional information can persuade you, though. My family is always joking about how I hide veggies in the dishes I make. Yep! I do sneak in pureed pumpkin or red pepper into many casseroles. I think the Philly Cooking Cream would disguise some finely diced celery and onion.
Exactly. No one could ever convince me that green peppers are worth it!
That recipe sounds so yummy. We love green peppers at our house. Okay, I love green peppers. I love the idea of keeping meals simple. I also would love to hear how you keep things consistent in your meal time – I have been wanting to do that because it is tiring always coming up with new ideas.
Blessings
Honey
I think keeping the kinds of meats we use consistent helps a lot. If I buy meat in bulk and freeze, then it’s always ready for some variation.
I noticed this at the store on my last visit when I was purchasing cream cheese and thought about giving it a try. I’m a little slow sometimes when it comes to trying out new things, but love the simple recipe you described. I think I’ll add it to my grocery list this week.
I know. I always thought this looked great, but for some reason hadn’t tried it!
Well, of course, you’ve convinced me to try this recipe. I love that it’s easy, because honestly, if your life is like mine there is little time to get everything done that actually needs to be done. Now, I’m going to agree with that comment above from Jimmie about green peppers — they are a total fave in our house. Baked pasta with them? Divine, my friend, divine!
When I make it I’m going to substitute gluten free pasta and we should be good to go. What an awesome review — and thank you for spotlighting a very cool product that busy moms {like me} simply must try.
Rachel
Your photo alone made me decide to make this! I think I’d add a lot more veggies (though no green peppers here, either!), but otherwise make this just as you did. It looks delicious!
I make a similar recipe but it doesn’t have the cream cheese. I’m going to have to try it w/ the cheese. BTW, I like to hide pureed squash in any marinara dish. My kids never know! We arent’ big green pepper fans either.
Hmmm. So do you puree it and then freeze it in icecubes to add to things like this? I may need to try that!
Oh – I love that idea. What about freezing canned pumpkin or squash in ice cube trays and adding that to pasta? Would that work? We have access to a regular supply of canned pumpkin, but I never know what to do with it.
Thanks for sharing such a quick and easy recipe. I always need things that we can throw together quickly!
No green peppers?? Oh, my goodness. I don’t think we can be friends anymore. 😉 Looks great! I love the Philadelphia cooking cremes. Makes me happy when there’s a sale and a coupon in my pocket. (Not exactly health food, though, so not *too* often.)
Yum! It sounds like something my family would love. I’ve been running out of ideas for dinner lately, so thanks for the help!
~Kim
I have seen those next to the cream cheeses, but I hadn’t really understood how they were used. So thanks for sharing your experience. Looks yummy! 🙂
I love how creamy this looks! I have pickyish eaters and I think they would love this, too – probably without the green peppers as well. I think I’m going to add it to next week’s menu! Thanks so much for sharing!
I feel your bell pepper pain. Spouse thinks they’re gross, and I agree there are times they can ruin the flavor of a dish. We’ve taken to substituting with poblano peppers. They are a similar size but a different enough flavor that Spouse will actually eat it.