Everything should have bacon- Spaghetti Pie!

A while back I was going out of town for a few days and I wanted to leave an easy meal that Jake could pop into the oven and reheat. Jake is a good cook on his own but if he can he will typically grab a frozen pizza and throw that in. So I decided to try my hand at a spaghetti pie. My brother in-law Trevor, his mom makes a mean spaghetti pie, in fact she is pretty famous for it. So what I decided to do was reach back into my memory and think of how I thought she might make hers and of course put my own twist on the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 box of spaghetti (I used whole grain-we had it on hand)

1 pkg bacon

1 yellow onion finely chopped

1 container part-skim ricotta cheese

3 large eggs

2 cups milk (we had 1% at home)

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup Parmesan cheese

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

2 cups frozen broccoli florets

Handful of Italian shredded cheese for topping

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
• Cook your pasta as directed on your box to al dente
• Meanwhile fry your back to a little over halfway done- (you can chop it up into small pieces or leave it strips and then cut it up. (I baked mine first in the oven and then chopped it up to not have so much bacon grease in my pan- completely up to you.)                                                                                                                                                   

• Next in the same pan add your onions and cook until they become translucent on low heat.
• While onions cook in a large bowl whisk your ricotta cheese, eggs, milk, cayenne pepper, half of the Parmesan and your salt together.
• At this point you will be ready to mix your cheese mixture and your pasta. Drain your pasta well stir in your ricotta mixture with your pasta fold in your bacon and onion mixture and your broccoli.
• 
• Once your mixture is well combined spread it evenly in a baking dish. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan and the Italian cheese if you choose to use it on top. I also added a little salt and pepper to the top.
• Bake the spaghetti pie for about 30 minutes or until the mixture has set well. (You can do the first 15-20 minutes covered and the last 15-10 minutes uncovered)                                                                           

Now just dig in and enjoy! The nice thing about this recipe is that you can easily put this spaghetti pie together, bake it and then freeze it which is what I did when I went out of town. You then just pop it in the oven at 400 or so for about 20 minutes and you have dinner all set.

Salud!