My 'Sort-of' Ziti al Forno

I kind of threw this dish together in a last ditch attempt to make something that actually sounded good to my stuffy-headed half-dead taste buds. It started looking better and better the more I put it together. "That looks reeeaaaallly good." Purred my husband as he peeked over my shoulder while I was taking this picture. I looked at him half-surprised because everything has kind of tasted like cardboard to me today and I couldn't smell what I was cooking at all, so it was at least encouraging to have someone say it looked good.

I've had this particular dish at Olive Garden before my gluten-free days and it was easily one of my favorites. Certainly not having all of the necessary ingredients for a copycat recipe made this a little bit more interesting to put together, but in the end, I'd say it came out ok.

My 'Sort-of' Ziti al Forno
Penne pasta (I used Tinkyada's Gluten Free Penne)
1 lb ground beef
1/2  medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced or minced
4 T cream cheese or neufchatel cheese
1/2 c milk
2 T flour (I used a gluten-free flour of course)
1/4 c shredded cheddar
1/4 c taco blend shredded cheese
1/4 c shredded mozzarella
1/4 c Parmesan
Basil/ Italian Seasoning/Pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the pasta according to directions on the package. Drain the pasta and place in a large 9x13 casserole dish. Brown the ground beef in a skillet along with diced onion and garlic. Drain it well and set aside for later in a bowl. In a small saucepan, warm the cream cheese and milk together until blended, stirring often so there aren't any chunks of cream cheese left. Add the flour and continue to stir until it has a yogurt-like consistency. Add in desired seasonings to the sauce.

Pour the meat mixture over the pasta and mix together, then mix in the cream cheese sauce until thoroughly blended. Top with cheddar, taco blend, and mozzarella and mix well again. You can top it with more of the shredded cheeses if you like and then top with Parmesan.

Place in the preheated oven and let it bake long enough to let all the cheeses melt. Serve while it's hot.


Ratings from the Experts*: I thought it was a wee bit dry. I'd probably milky-up the sauce so it wasn't so sticky and make more of it, otherwise, the blend of flavors was good. 7/10 for me. Hubby agreed with my rating.

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