Thank you to Kraft Foods for offering me the opportunity to recreate a recipe with PHILADELPHIA Cooking Creme.
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)Â 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.
