Sicilian Supper

Also called Poor Man's Lasagna.

No pictures- tell Coach I really need that new lens for my camera! So use your imagination here. I also don't have exact measurements. This is one of those family-learned dishes that you just make.

Ingredients:
Egg Noodles- about 2/3 of a big bag.
1 stick cream cheese
1-2 cups milk
~1/2 a container of grated parmesan
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 lb hamburger

So here's where I blow your mind: cook the hamburger (season how you want) and mix it up with your sauce. Then cook the noodles. I leave the noodles a bit more al dente since you'll be baking them in more liquid. That's like a second cooking, so leaving them firmer keeps the noodle from getting too mushy during the whole process.

As for the white sauce- you need to melt the cream cheese on a medium heat in a sauce pan with about 1 cup of milk. I use a whisk and patience for this. You want the cream cheese all combined and melted nice and smooth. Then add in your parmesan cheese- whisk till smooth! Ok, so here's where the whole do-it-how-you-think's-best bit comes in. You need to taste your sauce and decide how 1)cheesy you want it and 2) how thick you want it. I usually add a bit more parmesan and a bit more milk because I don't like the tartness of cream cheese. I like a more mellow sauce. You also need to salt and pepper at this point (something else I don't do since I salt and pepper my meat and I hate dishes being over-salted). You can garlic here as well (something I do since I love garlic). It's really your sauce, make it what you want!

Now for assembly: stir together your white sauce and noodles and layer those in a buttered 13x9 pan. I heavily butter but you could use olive oil spray if you care about your health (something I'm rarely cognizant of when making pasta). Then you spread your meat/red sauce combo on top of that. Sprinkle more parmesan on top and bake at 350 till hot and bubbly! You can also freeze it at this point. I like to make double batches, eat one then and freeze one for later. It's also my standard someone-died-or-someone-had-a-baby-or-someone-is-sick-take-these-people-a-meal meal.

You can also add in a layer of shredded parmesan and mozzarella between the noodles and red sauce, or use mozzarella on top. Once again, make it what you want.

I like this dish because it's cheap and easy. I get our hamburger from those super-generous parents (they buy a whole cow and just distribute the meat at will, we get all our red meat free from them because they rock like that). I use $1 red sauce and off brand everything else. About $5 for the white sauce ingredients, $1.50 for red sauce stuff, then if you add more cheese maybe $2 more. $2 for the noodles usually. So that's like a 10 buck meal that can feed 6-8. Done!